Shinigami
by phoenix3488
Summary: "On that day, a being nicknamed Shinigami was born." What if Naruto took his training into his own hands? Naruto with elements of bleach. Powerful! Naruto.
1. Enter Shinigami

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone. I know I already have 3 stories in-progress but this plot wouldn't leave me alone until I put it on paper. So I present you my new story: _Shinigami_.

This story was inspired by KyuubiMan's story : Prove the Pervert Wrong. It is a really good story showing Naruto's progress without Jiraiya's help but it was never finished unfortunately. After reading it, I thought, what if Naruto was the same and gained his power by himself. This whole story is all about depending on oneself and doing what you think is right.

There will be several clashes of philosophy in this story. These clashes will revolve around the idea of justice but I can't say more. You will have to read for more.

This story is a semi crossover with Bleach as I take elements from bleach to use in Naruto. So if you are hoping to see Bleach characters, I am sorry but you got the wrong story.

Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 1:<span> Enter Shinigami**

* * *

><p>In a town far away from Konoha, a ninja was sitting on a tree. His feet were dangling in the air as he watched a white haired old man get pummelled by angry women. The ninja on the tree was wearing an orange jumpsuit with black strips in the middle and the sides of the cloth. Above his forehead was a metal headband with the leaf insignia on it, indicating his association with the ninjas of Konoha. Finally he wore a large red cloak with black flames adorning the bottom of the fabric.<p>

This person was none other than Naruto Uzumaki and the old man being pummelled was his sensei Jiraiya of the Sannin. Four months had passed ever since Naruto departed from Konoha. Four long months since he started his training trip with Jiraiya in the hope of improving until he was able to deal with his pursuers. Indeed, Naruto was the target of a group of S-Rank criminals belonging to an organization. The name of the organization was Akatsuki or 'red dawn'.

Jiraiya, his sensei, was able to gather the objectives of this group using his considerable resources. While the organization had several goals, the main one was to capture every Bijuu, for what purpose? That remained to be seen. Naruto being a Jinchuuriki or a human holding in his body one of these Bijuu was one of their targets. To protect and prepare him to deal with the threat, the Hokage – Tsunade of the Sannin – and her advisors agreed to have Jiraiya train Naruto for the next two and a half years. Not to mention, it served as a way to hide Naruto's location from his pursuers.

Despite the smile on Naruto's face, as he looked at the comic scene below him, he couldn't help but be sad at how the training trip turned out to be. When he started this adventure, he considered Jiraiya his mentor, a perverted old man, yes, but his mentor nonetheless. Thus he had great respect for the man. Unfortunately, dealing with the Sannin for more than a few hours a day – as it was before leaving the village – turned out to be the wrong thing to do. He came to the conclusion that the man he knew back in the village was only an image, an illusion, a fake identity concocted to seem enticing to him.

But like they said, a leopard cannot change its spot.

It didn't take long for Naruto to understand that Jiraiya, like most powerful shinobi, was prideful, extremely so. He was set in his ways and didn't want to change, _'or maybe he was too old to change?'_ Naruto had wondered several times but never found an answer. If Jiraiya thought something couldn't be done in a certain way, he wouldn't accept that it was possible and thus was wrong. Coincidentally, Jiraiya never listened to Naruto's complaints, even if they were well founded.

Unfortunately, Naruto was stubborn and had a profound mistrust of authorities, having been led wrong in more than one occasion by one of them. The two personalities clashed and obviously it ended badly.

* * *

><p><strong>Flashback – 2 weeks after departing Konoha<strong>

* * *

><p>Naruto and Jiraiya were walking among the trees. They were still in Fire country territory considering the green scenery around them. Whereas Jiraiya was giggling while writing on his notebook, Naruto was grumbling as he tried and failed miserably to use the Rasengan with one hand only.<p>

"Grrr... It doesn't work Ero – sennin. Why are you making me learn this anyway? I have already mastered the Rasengan!" He yelled clearly frustrated by his incapacity to do the technique.

"You haven't mastered it yet, Gaki. You may be able to use it using your clones but it is a waste of time and chakra. It defeats the very purpose of this attack." Jiraiya answered nonchalantly.

"Purpose...?"

"Yes! Initially the attack was created to be used quickly and without notice to the target. By using a clone to form it, you tell your opponent exactly what you intend to do. Not counting the fact that you cannot create it instantly yet."

Naruto was forced to admit that the Sannin was right. But that didn't stop him from complaining though.

"I get that, but what does that have to do with everything else. I am tired of doing the same thing; I want to learn something else other than that. You said you would teach me but the only thing you have done so far is giving me the same excuse as Kakashi."

"And what excuse is that...?" Jiraiya inquired.

"That my chakra control is bad. I know that already, but why don't you give me an exercise to improve it?"

"I already explained to you the leaf concentration, tree climbing and water walking exercises. Master them and you will improve your control."

"But I already told you, it doesn't work for me. Don't ask me why, but even though I did the exercise, it did nothing to increase my control." Naruto yelled at Jiraiya, exasperated by the situation. For the last week, he had done nothing else but train his chakra control. He had long since mastered those exercises but they did nothing to improve his control over his chaotic chakra. He had no ideas why but it seemed the exercises he knew weren't tailed for him.

Of course he had shared his findings with his sensei but the latter never took him seriously.

"What about Jutsus? I know my control is poor but isn't there any jutsus that doesn't require excellent control?" He asked for the nth time but he got the same answer.

"I told you before, I won't teach you anything unless you agree to learn how to manipulate the Kyuubi chakra." _And here we go again_, Naruto thought as he looked at his sensei, clearly angered.

"And I told you I won't resort to using the fox to be strong. The last time I used it, I almost lost control and couldn't even devise a decent strategy."

"Then how are you going to become strong enough in such a short time?"

"I will train hard in every ninja arts and master them" He grinned as he said that, completely confident in his ability to succeed.

"While I admire your confidence, I cannot let you foolishly think you can reach a level the like of Itachi without using Kyuubi." Jiraiya dismissed him, angering Naruto even further.

"How can you say that?"

"Who is the experienced ninja here?" He asked Naruto who had nothing to answer to that. "Don't get me wrong, I definitely think you can reach my level given time, but that is something we don't have. So until you change your mind about learning to control the beast inside you, I won't teach you anything other than helping you master what you already know."

* * *

><p><strong>End Flashback<strong>

* * *

><p>After that talk, their relationship had deteriorated even more, with Naruto stubbornly refusing to acknowledge Jiraiya's point of view and vice versa. While Jiraiya kept peeping in every women bathroom he found, Naruto desperately tried to learn something new. This was done using the little information he remembered from his time in the ninja academy. One thing was certain though, he would never rely on someone else's power, especially not the fox's.<p>

What Jiraiya didn't know was that Naruto disliked depending on someone. His whole life, he lived alone, fending for himself. Even the allowance given to him by the Sandaime was slowly being refunded by the missions he did upon becoming a ninja. He disliked owing to someone and did his best to always return whatever was given to him. To him, it was a matter of freedom and pride. Pride for being able to fend for himself and freedom by not owing anything to anyone.

Of course there were exceptions like everything he learned in the academy and what his sensei taught him. In his mind, it was his sensei job to teach him something so he didn't owe his sensei anything beyond what he deemed acceptable. In this case, learning a jutsu from his sensei was at the latter's discretion. The fact that Jiraiya refused to teach him a new jutsu wasn't really what bothered him, it was the blackmailing part about using the Kyuubi chakra that really angered him. So he vowed to become strong by himself, so strong that he would rub it on everyone face, everyone that mocked him and his dream.

And when people would wonder how he became this strong, he would be able to proudly say _'by himself'_.

With that in mind, the following week after his confrontation with Jiraiya, he tried his best to learn something from his memories. He used the three Chakra control exercises he knew and relentlessly worked on it, even combined them but his progresses were slow. Like he had found earlier on, it seemed he had so much chakra the exercises designed for normal ninja didn't work on him.

When that didn't work, he went back to learning the Rasengan using only one hand. Despite his best efforts, he didn't succeed. It came to a point where he started doubting himself, wondering if his comrades were right and he was an idiot. What he didn't know was that the reason he couldn't master the Rasengan with one hand stemmed from the seal on his stomach. Because the seal was designed to randomly mix his chakra with the fox's to further increase his reserves, he unconsciously had to take into account the constant shifting of his chakra supply not including everything else he had to do in order to generate an orb of chakra. Frankly speaking, if he were on the same conditions as Jiraiya, chakra-wise, the focus he was currently using to create the Rasengan in one hand would be enough to create a dozen orbs all over his body. That is just how much harder he had to work compared to other ninjas.

Stubborn as he was, he didn't give up. Even when Jiraiya sarcastically made some comments about his lack of progress, he didn't give up. Instead, he recalled a lesson given in the academy mentioning that all Hokage had special skills that set them apart from the common ninjas. The Shodaime had his wood style techniques, the Nidaime had his extreme control over water style techniques, the Sandaime had a mastery over every non-bloodline related techniques in Konoha, and finally the Yondaime had his teleportation technique.

With that in mind, and knowing he was going nowhere trying to follow the same path as countless other shinobis before him, he decided to find something that set him apart. But what? That was the next question he faced. In the end he decided to follow his instincts and do something completely out of character for him: _he meditated_.

Shocking indeed as he was never someone to sit idly like that. The goal of this exercise was to better understand himself in the hope of finding something about him that set him apart.

For one week straight, he just sat there, his eyes closed, focusing inward and ignoring everything happening around him. Of course he did it only when Jiraiya went out to peep as usual. By the end of the week, he finally reached his goal and succinctly made a discovery that would reshape the world, as it was known.

While meditating, he felt a sensation of falling deeper and deeper inside his mind. The descent lasted for a while. He didn't know how long it lasted but to him it felt like several days passed, as he felt deeper in the abyss of his mind. Finally he saw a bright light at the end of the tunnel. At first he panicked, wondering how he would survive a fall like that, but he quickly calmed himself when he felt himself slow down to a halt just above the ground.

As he looked around and observed his surrounding, he marvelled at the beauty of the place. In front of him, he could see two lakes. On his left was a lake larger than the right one. It was brown coloured and seemed viscous. On his right was another smaller grey lake. The liquid inside it seemed so fluid he had the distinct impression that it was almost gaseous. He had never seen such substance before and wondered what it was.

Still, he looked beyond the two lakes and found another one in front of the two. He flew until he stood above it and analysed it. This one seemed extremely larger and was a mix of the two lakes behind him. The liquid in it was blue this time.

As if it wasn't enough, he also saw what looked like a pipe that went up in the sky. He could see a red liquid randomly dropping in the lake and increasing its size. The sight of the red liquid was all he needed to understand what each of the lake represented.

_'No way! The blue lake is my chakra formed by my physical and spiritual energy. The red liquid must be the Kyuubi chakra.'_ He had thought at the time.

Still following his instincts, he flew over the grey lake, which he knew represented his spiritual energy. As if possessed, he dived in the lake, completely submerging himself. He enjoyed the feeling of being covered by this liquid. It was calm and appeasing to him. He didn't know how to describe it. He only knew that he never wanted to be separated from this energy.

Days after days, he went back to that place and relished the feeling of being covered by the substance. It came to a point where he wanted to feel the energy even outside his body. To do so, he tried with all his might to unlock his spiritual energy in the real world. Obviously he didn't succeed on the first try but he never gave up.

It took him another week to finally grasps the newly discovered energy and learn how to call on it in the real world. That day he was so overjoyed with his success that he even dismissed his last argument with his sensei. With his newfound ability to use spiritual energy, his hopes went up again as he knew that the energy was not only unknown but was surely unique to him alone. Like every Hokage before him, he was drawing his own path to success with his own special skills, never mind his, as of yet, lack of understanding of the energy.

His discovery made, he went about analysing the spiritual energy and comparing it to his chakra. By the end of his study, he found out that spiritual energy was extremely more malleable then Chakra and thus he found himself easily controlling the energy. Not knowing how to train it, he used Chakra control exercises as a basis. That is how he discovered the first ability granted to him by spiritual energy: _air walking_.

Indeed, he discovered that he could easily create a platform under his feet to walk on air. This simple discovery only served to galvanize him into learning more about it. Of course he took great care in hiding his newfound ability from Jiraiya, always training in secret.

The training kept going like that until four months had passed since Naruto's departure from Konoha.

* * *

><p>Naruto's musing was interrupted when he felt Jiraiya's spiritual energy materialize behind him. Lately he had been able to sense his surrounding by looking for any spiritual energy. The fact that no one – to his knowledge – knew how to manipulate spiritual energy, thus hide its presence allowed him to detect ninjas the like of Jiraiya even when the latter tried actively to hide himself.<p>

Of course he never mentioned that to the toad Sannin, much to his ire.

"I see you received your beat down as always. When will you learn...?" Naruto asked to his sensei without turning around to look at him.

Jiraiya growled as he was once again detected despite hiding his chakra signature. "How the hell do you do that Gaki?"

"You are the experienced ninja, figure it yourself."

Jiraiya scowled as Naruto used his own words against him. Naruto's respect for him had diminished a lot ever since the start of this training trip and he didn't know what to do to fix things. Nonetheless, he reminded himself why he was looking for the blond in the first place and retrieved a scroll from his pocket.

"Tsunade has answered your request."

"Really?" Naruto's head made a complete turn so fast Jiraiya winced thinking the boy had broken his neck.

"Yeah. I don't know what you put in that letter of yours but apparently she agreed your request to complete missions. The scroll in my hand is your first solo C-Rank mission." Jiraiya explained to a grinning Naruto. "Why do you even need to do these missions? You should train instead."

"And how am I going to rise up the shinobi ranks? While I can't participate in a Chuunin exams for obvious reason, that doesn't mean I can't perform missions to get a field promotion."

"So that was your goal all along? You think you are up for ten C-Rank and one B-Rank mission to become a Chuunin?" Jiraiya smirked as he taunted his young charge, who surprisingly grinned back, his eyes closed and his face exuding his confidence.

"You will just have to wait and see, won't you?" Naruto stood on the branch before taking the scroll from Jiraiya's outstretched arm. "In any event, completing this missions will not only provide me the necessary experience but will go a long way to show how far I can go without your help!" The last part was said looking directly in Jiraiya's eyes. Naruto's challenging look was a reminder to Jiraiya that the boy was becoming more secretive as the days went by.

He tried but failed to spy on his pupil, trying to see what the boy was up to. After all, 4 months had passed since the start of the training trip and he couldn't afford to waste even more of it, he had to find a way to convince to boy. But so far, his endeavours were rebuffed quite vehemently.

While he was deep in thoughts, Naruto was going over the mission details. After finishing his reading, he grinned. His mission was to destroy a mercenary camp that harassed a village not far away. _'This is a chance to kick some ass!'_ Naruto thought as he looked back at his sensei.

"I am moving out to complete the mission Ero – sennin." Naruto yelled before tree hopping toward the area the scroll mentioned the mercenaries stayed at.

Behind him, Jiraiya shrugged as he went back to his hobby: _peeping_.

* * *

><p>Naruto silently moved through the foliage for half an hour before he reached the spot indicated. The first thing he noticed was the camp below him that was positioned in a circular fashion. He could see several guards standing at several entry points. In the middle of the camp stood a large tent, larger than the others. This led him to conclude that it belonged to the leader of the group.<p>

His observation done, he grinned. "They won't know what hit them!" He smiled predatorily as his fingers formed a cross shaped handseals. A muttered Kage Bunshin later and three clones appeared beside him.

"Ok everyone, I want you to attack the camp from each cardinal point. A surprise attack will work better than charging head on."

The original said as the clones nodded before departing. He waited until his clones were ready before charging the guards.

The two mercenaries standing in front of the camp never knew what hit them as they saw a blur before the first one was smashed on the ground. The other saw the blond with his hand still extended and ran at him to avenge his comrade when a finger was pointed in his direction.

"_Hado 1: Sho_." A kinetic force slammed on the guard stomach, before he was sent spiralling toward the foliage.

Naruto looked at his handiwork with a smile. "You gotta love **Kido**. First time I used it on someone ever since I created it."

His smile vanished though when he heard explosion coming from the other side of the encampment and focused back on his mission. As expected, mercenaries poured out of the tents after hearing the explosion. Upon seeing Naruto, they charged at him, swords held high in the air.

Taking out a kunai, Naruto met the charge head on, and weaved through the masses, ducking, sidestepping, and even jumping over a strike all the while incapacitating the mercenaries with a combination of well-aimed kicks and punches. Sometimes he used his kunai to slash his attackers' bodies but mostly he kept to beating the crap out of the bandits.

As he finished with the first group of mercenaries, another one charged at him. Not wanting to deal with all of them he pointed his palm toward the group.

_"Bakudo 9: Geki."_ Suddenly, the group was covered in a red light and found themselves unable to move. Smirking at the effect of his spell, he quickly knocked out the group before continuing his attack. _'A good thing they are only mercenaries, I don't think it will have worked on a Chuunin'_ He thought as he ran in the camp, destroying the tents and its inhabitants left and right.

He could see his clones doing a good job too as they destroyed the tents in their path. Before long, he reached the main one at about the same time his clones arrived. Behind every Naruto was only chaos. Tents were on fire; mercenaries were on the ground either unconscious or moaning in pain.

As the original was about to do the same to the main tent, a voice coming from it yelled.

"Stop right where you are or I am going to kill all the hostages!"

Naruto froze as he heard that. To prove his point, the tent curtain was pushed to the side to give way to a gruesome sight. Beyond the curtains were several women completely naked. They were confined in a cage like vulgar cattle. Even from his position, he could smell the horrible odour coming from it. It reeked of sex. That much Naruto knew. Travelling with Jiraiya for so long, he had grown accustomed to the smell. But it wasn't the realization that the women were sex slave that shocked him almost to his breaking point. It was the eyes of the victims that shook him.

They looked so dead, like they gave up the idea of ever being rescued. Simply put, these women were broken beyond repairs.

"Now put your weapons away, nice and slow." A disgustingly gruff voice pulled Naruto out of his musing and he gazed at its owner. The man was plain looking, wearing a simple kimono with a belt holding the fabric closed. He could see the attack took the man by surprise.

Naruto's eyes widened though when a saw a young girl sprawled behind the man. The girl seemed to be around his age and considering she was out of the cage unlike the other captives, he guessed correctly that the man in front of him had been "using" her moment ago.

The man seeing Naruto's gaze on the girl behind him grinned. "As I am sure you have realized, these girls are mine. Now why the fuck did you attack my camp!" He scowled at Naruto who seemed stuck in his own world.

"Why...?" Naruto murmured.

"That is rich! You come to my camp, slaughter my men and have the gale to ask me why?"

Naruto ignored him as he repeated his question. "Why...? How could you do that to them?"

The disbelief in his voice was clear as water. He couldn't believe it. He couldn't wrap his mind to the reality he was presented with. The mercenaries' leader obviously couldn't see he was walking on a thin line, and further dug his grave.

"Why? Because I can, boy. If I learned one thing in my live, it is that power means everything down here. If you have power, you control everything." The man laughed insanely as he gave his explanation. Despite having lost his men, he felt confident in his survival as long as he had his hostages. He guessed correctly that the blond standing in front of him would do anything to save the hostages and he counted on it to save his life.

Unfortunately, his response triggered something that was deeply repressed in Naruto's psyche: _acceptance_. Ever since he was a kid, he had always thought that he could save everyone if he tried hard enough. The incident with Haku didn't count as, in his mind, the boy chose to sacrifice his live for his master Zabuza. But now looking at the broken women in front of him, he wondered if there was even something left to save.

The realization that saving them was beyond him was devastating. His mind desperately tried to find something that he could do to appease the women before him. In his search, his gaze lingered on the man that was responsible for this.

On that day, a being was born. A being that would avenge those that couldn't defend themselves, a being that would stop at nothing to eradicate the guilty. In time the being would be given a nickname that would send chill up the spines of the wicked souls.

Naruto looked at the man with nothing but unaltered hatred as he pointed his index at the man's forehead. Before the man could utter a word Naruto muttered with a voice so cold it would have frozen a lake.

"_Hado 4: Byakurai_."

Once the attack was announced, a concentrated and powerful bolt of lightning was fired from the pointed finger. Too fast for the man to follow, the bolt pierced his head and kept going an hundred meters behind him, never stopping and piercing anything in its path. The man never even registered his death as he collapsed on the ground.

His job done, Naruto absentmindedly rescued the hostages before escorting them to the closest village. Knowing that the villagers would at least take care of the abused women, he went back to the town he left his sensei.

No one ever knew it but on that day the being nicknamed **_Shinigami_** was born.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

I hope for a first chapter, it was to your liking. As you certainly noticed, I made it so Naruto would have a profound change that will give birth to the being nicknamed _Shinigami_. This part of the story was inspired by a character in the manga Kekkaishi for those that want to know.

Now if you liked this chapter, review please. It will increase my motivation to write the next chapter sooner and I will be able to answer your questions. For those that await an update for my other stories, fear not, it will come soon.

To be continued...


	2. Improvement

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone, I am back with the second chapter of my new story, Shinigami. I know some of you want to shot me for not updating "Infinite Supply" but I had little time to work on it. The chapter is 50% done but it is difficult to find the time to write it, so I am sorry for the inconvenience.

Anyway, I would like to thank everyone who reviewed and I hope this chapter will answer several of your questions. But I must tell you right now, so you won't be disappointed later on, that Naruto won't have a Zanpakuto. The only thing I took from Bleach was Kido and everything related to spiritual energy. The main objectives of this story was to showcase a Naruto wielding Kido and try myself at writing a little philosophical story.

Concerning the pairings, I have to admit, I don't usually bother with it unless it plays a part in the story, so I can't tell you anything about it. For the moment, just assume that there is no pairing.

For a future involvement with Bleach universe, I cannot be sure as I didn't think that far ahead. Maybe I could sent Naruto in the bleach universe as a sequel for this story, but that will have to wait. Right now, the story will be kept in the Naruto universe.

Finally, I am not bashing anyone in this story (at least I will try not to). If some character act weirdly, there will be a reason behind it. I don't like to bash people because, usually it decreases the quality of the story.

Now I present you the second installment of Shinigami. Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 2:<strong>** Improvement**

* * *

><p>The trip back to the village he left Jiraiya, was done silently as Naruto contemplated his actions. Now that he was thinking clearly, without adrenaline pumping through his veins, he had his mind filled with his last action. He had executed a man with extreme prejudice. Such thing wasn't easily forgotten.<p>

He had killed before, that much was a given with his job. But it always happened in the heat of combat. He had never deliberately killed someone and never out of hate. What was surprising though, was his lack of feeling on the matter. He was more focused on the women that had their live destroyed by the actions of the mercenaries. It was difficult for someone who had always tried to find good in people, to understand just how far human beings were willing to go to satisfy their urges.

Before long, he reached the camp Jiraiya and he built. It was outside town for security reasons. Because they travelled incognito, they couldn't afford to be seen by too many people. Staying outside the village gave them a sense of security. As Naruto walked to his tent, he wasn't surprised to see Jiraiya sitting on a bench, completely engrossed in his notebook. Occasionally he would giggle perversely before looking around cautiously as if a woman would appear and beat him up.

He knew Jiraiya was observing him from the corner of his eyes but he didn't care. All he wanted was a good night of sleep and to forget everything.

"Finished already?" Jiraiya casually asked but Naruto could feel the concern in the tone.

"Yeah. I already sent my report to Tsunade through Gamakichi." He slowly replied before suddenly stopping just in front of the tent's entrance. "Jiraiya..." He begins slowly as the mentioned looked at him with a serious look. "Why do humans hurt each other?"

The question surprised Jiraiya, as he wasn't expecting something like that from his dense student. Myriad of thoughts went through his mind as he wondered what happened in Naruto's mission to make him act so dejected. He weighted his words as he had a feeling they would play a big part in Naruto's development.

"This is a very difficult thing to answer. No matter how many people you ask this question to, you will always be given a different answer. People have their own opinion on the subject, just like I have my own. So I don't want you to take it at face value." Jiraiya conveyed the seriousness of the matter as he looked intently at Naruto. Upon seeing his student nods in understanding, he continued.

"I am sure you learned in the academy that humans are extremely close to animals when it comes to behaviour. Basically we are civilized versions of animals. Everyday we fight our basic instincts, to act civilized. Why is that? It is because we care about other people's opinion of us. Growing up, we are taught to be a respectable citizen, at least for most of us anyway. But not everyone can resist their instinct. Most people would choose the easier path to reach their goal even if it hurts other people in doing so. Take an example on mercenaries. Some of them become what they are because they don't know any better. But the majority are in this business because it is an easy way to make money and other advantages. And in most case, being a mercenary is even more rewarding money-wise than leading a respectful life."

Naruto digested his sensei's word as he tried to make sense to it. "What about ninjas? We kill people for a living. How does that make us any better than them?"

"The biggest difference is the reason behind our actions. Ninjas are just a perfect example of survival instinct. We do our job to protect our village, our family, and our friends. We do it so other people won't have to go through what we are dealing with. Of course not every ninja does this for noble reason. There are ninjas out there that kill for fun and you will meet plenty of them in the future. But remember that everyone is different. You cannot judge a whole community based on the action of a lone man."

At the time he didn't know it, but he would later refer this speech as the starting point of Naruto's maturation. Not saying another word, Naruto nodded before moving inside his tent. He was tired from everything that happened and couldn't wait to rest.

* * *

><p>After that night, things slowly went back to normal, with Jiraiya peeping on women everytime he could and Naruto going back to his training. For several days, Naruto intensively trained. He mostly worked on increasing his understanding of spiritual energy – which he named <em>Reiryoku<em> –, all the while increasing his proficiency in casting Hado or Demons art. He thought the name fitting for the vast potential it held.

But that wasn't the only thing he focused on. His last mission showed him the importance of control and precision. He kept being reminded of the hostage situation he had found himself in. In order to avoid being in that position again, he asked advice to Jiraiya who was happy to help. The sannin may have refused to train Naruto in anything new, but what Naruto needed was only advice. Jiraiya explained that the best way to avoid hostage situation was to strike quickly and decisively, without the enemy knowing until it is too late.

In other words, Naruto focused on increasing his agility, speed, stealth and precision. Every morning, he would work physically, doing push-ups, sit-ups and the like. Then he would run around the make-up training field, switching between fast and slow pace. He would have continued with Taijutsu training, if it wasn't for his new interest in weapon fighting. His last encounter had deeply ingrained in him the need to quickly finish his fights. What better way to do so than by using weapons? That is why, after the morning training, he would train in using kunai as a makeshift sword.

In the afternoon, he worked on his Hado and finished by a meditation session. Ever since discovering the deeper part of his mind, he went there every time he could to experience the power that made him what he now was. Even to this day, it was as exhilarating as it had been the first time.

Currently, Naruto was sitting on the ground, leaning against a tree. He had no idea where his sensei was as the latter was out of his sensing range. Ever since he learned how to sense people by their spiritual energy, he had been able to avoid Jiraiya spying attempt. While he didn't want to hide too many things from his sensei, he couldn't afford anyone knowing exactly what discovery he made. The use of spiritual energy was his finding and he didn't want to share it with anyone. It was one of the few things he could say belonged solely to him, and he intended to keep it that way.

What he was doing right now was creating a new spell for his Hado techniques. Indeed, the techniques he used were all his creations. It wasn't something that automatically came with the discovery of Reiryoku. Instead it was the result of his understanding of the energy.

Reiryoku, from the understanding he had of chakra, was the yin part of the latter. People associate it with illusion because this energy is capable of creating form out of nothing. It is a power deeply linked with the imagination. Using this information as a basis, Naruto theorized that he could imagine any attack he wanted, using this energy and force it to happen in the world. Of course it wasn't as simple as that but it was the basis of his Hado's creating process.

The first spell he created was _Hado N°1: Sho_. To create it, Naruto visualized the end result of his attack. He thus imagined some kind of force slamming on his target, hard enough to knock down a tree. As he visualised that, he let his Reiryoku freely act to do his binding. The energy responded to his wish and knocked down the tree. Unfortunately, doing so made him waste so much energy that the first time he used that spell, he felt like he had used half of his reserve. This was because the energy was wasted as it tried to find a logical way to do its master binding.

The next part of the creation process, was then to analyse the energy's actions to create the desired effect. In this case, he understood that Reiryoku rapidly compressed the air in a shell before releasing it in the tree direction. Upon impact, the pressurised air was released in the tree direction. The force generated by the rapid depressurization of the air was enough to knock down the tree.

Upon understanding how it was done, it became a simple matter of repeating the whole process but this time by himself, instead of relying on the energy to do it for him. By doing it himself, he not only controls the power of the attack but also avoids wasting energy in the process. The last step after this is to increase the speed at which he can launch the attack.

Using this process, Naruto was able to create almost four dozen attacks. The number he attributed to his attacks weren't representative to their power. Rather it represented their order of creation.

Right now though, he was trying to create a large area attack. Having thoroughly pondered on the results he wanted from the attack, He rose from the ground and slowly walked toward the small pond in the center of the field. Upon reaching its shore, he slowly extended his palm and gathered his spiritual energy. Then he visualized the result of the attack before leaving the rest to his energy.

Not one to disappoint, his energy gathered in front of his palm before unleashing a veritable torrent of blue flames that covered the entire pond. The attack finished, Naruto was left standing, amazed by its power. The pond was nowhere to be seen as it had been evaporated because of the flames' intense heat. He was unperturbed by the blisters covering his palm as it was slowly healing.

"Amazing! I have never seen blue flames before. Maybe that is why those flames were so hot. I will need to reduce the heat in this attack though, if I don't want to hurt other people." He frowned at the last part knowing that he didn't seek to hurt bystanders with his attacks.

Still, the euphoria over, he slumped on the ground completely exhausted by the energy he spent. This was the first time one of his spell used the majority of his reserves. "It can't be helped! This spell is so much more complex than any other. It is a wonder I was even able to do it in the first place. At least I now have a name for this baby. _Hado N° 33: Sokatsui_. That will be its name."

He happily smiled as he deeply breathed in, absorbing the much-needed air. Now that he had seen the attack in action, it was time for him to understand how it worked and replicate it.

* * *

><p><strong>2 MONTHS LATER –<strong>

* * *

><p>Standing at the top of a tree, Naruto was overlooking a large encampment filled with armed people. The way they moved and arrogantly laughed gave away their occupation as mercenaries to him. Over the last two months, his training had taken a turn for the better. Now that he had something to study, something pleasant to him, he had a better time than the first month of his travel with Jiraiya. He made such a huge progress that even he couldn't believe how strong he was becoming. Obviously he was still a far cry for ninja the like of Kakashi, his late sensei, but he was progressing nonetheless. Another change that occurred in him was his mentality. While before, he enjoyed showing off in battle and goofing around even if the situation was dire, he now kept a calm and stoic look during battle. Outside battle though he stayed the same smiling boy he was.<p>

He had done several C-Rank missions in the last two months and he was on his last one before he would be able to take on B-Rank missions. Thus one mission short to rise up the rank and become a Chuunin. This mission though, wasn't like any other before. The camp he was observing was one that housed the famous Kuroshinshi group of mercenaries. They liked to think of themselves as "black clothed gentlemen".

The group was famous for their black clothes and their gentleman like attitude. They never lifted a hand on women or children and focused instead on men. Though that didn't mean they did nothing to the women and children. What they did could be considered worse as they instead enslaved them or sold them to the black market. The group was extremely well organised and bribed several officials to keep their activities under the radar.

They would have stayed unnoticed if it wasn't for their last stunt. They had attacked a village that held a close relationship with the local Daimyo. The man wasn't about to let it slide and hired Konoha ninjas to dispose of the group. That is where Naruto came in. He had received the mission details a week ago and had then started the process of dismantling the group, which was no easy task.

The reach of the organization was very deep, so he couldn't just destroy them by killing the mercenaries. The heads of the group would simply hire other mercenaries to begin anew. So for the last week he had blindsided the organization by either killing or setting up their officials. A little interrogation on each of them and they quickly sold their companions. By the end of the week, the reach of the organization was limited to the encampment he was currently observing. Disposing of the mercenaries would be the last part of his mission.

"It is show time!" He muttered as he slowly crept toward the standing guards. The foliage served to hide him from the three guards as he stopped at the edge of the forest. Stealth was of the essence here, as he didn't want to face hundred of mercenaries. A quickly thrown stone was enough to distract the guards for him to appear behind them and slam two kunai in the neck of the first two guards. Before the last one could understand what was going on, a shuriken was lodged in his forehead.

Unlike before, he didn't create any clones as he chose to preserve his reserves. Thanks to his Reiryoku sensing, he had detected a particularly powerful one in the camp. Obviously he would fight that person soon, so he wanted to have all the advantages he could get.

Like a ghost, he swept through the tents, stepping inside them to dispose of their occupants silently before going for the next one. Not once did his targets notice him until it was too late. Half an hour later, only two tents were left, one containing the apparent leader and another, his subordinates. He would have continued with his silent operation were it not for the position of the occupants.

_'They are too far apart from each other for me to dispose of them without their notice. I have to get them all at the same time.' _

He knew this meant his silent operation was over and the one in the central tent would react but he had no choice. Considering his options, he quickly came up with something that would do the trick.

Inside the main tent, the leader was having a conversation with his two subordinates, completely oblivious to the events currently occurring outside his tent.

"Were you able to get in touch with the mayor?"

"No! I got no response from him." One of the subordinates answered as the other continued.

"None of them are responding to our message. The men I sent in town never came back either. I don't know what is going but things are going downhill ever since our last attack boss!"

The leader who unlike his subordinates was wearing a dark ninja attire with a sword fastened on his back, the handle above his shoulder, wore a grave expression. He had been a ninja for a long time and knew what was happening.

"Someone is destroying our support base." He finally replied to his subordinates who looked at him in confusion.

"Whoever are doing it went all the way to give us a false sense of normalcy. Meanwhile they are disposing of our people. Only ninjas would do something like that. We have to..."

Boom!

He never finished his explanations because a violent explosion rocketed the place. Without wasting anytime, they rushed outside the safety of their tents to see what was going on. Upon looking outside, the only thing they saw was a sea of blue flames devouring the tent closest to them. Before they could inspect any further, they heard a voice beyond the flames.

"_Bakudo 21: Sekienton_"

A red ball went through the flames and impacted just in front of the three mercenaries. Upon impact, it exploded, creating red fumes all around the place and blinding everyone. While they desperately tried to escape the fumes that seemed to irritate their eyes, Naruto moved behind each of the leader's subordinate and disposed of them. As he was about to move toward the leader himself, he felt the humidity in the air.

"_Suiton: suijin heki_." A whirlpool rotated around the leader and disposed of the fumes. When Naruto's technique was completely dispelled, the leader looked at Naruto in wonder.

"Well I will be damned, you are just a kid!"

"And you are a ninja!" Naruto shot back to the mercenary who laughed.

"You must be wondering what I am doing with a bunch of mercenaries." Seeing no reaction from Naruto he continued. "Once upon a time, I was a ninja just like you, proud to serve my country. I must say I was even good at that, but one day I had my eyes opened." As he talked, the leader made wide gesture as if talking to a crowd. "Do you know how much the village gain from the mission you are doing? No, better yet, do you know how little you receive compared to what they are paid? Less than a quarter, that is what you receive while they gain everything else."

This information surprised Naruto, as he had never wondered how much the village gained for any mission they accepted. Still, he wasn't about to think of such thing during the mission, so he stayed impassive and listened to the obvious missing nin.

"Shocking, isn't it? I can understand the village taking most of the wages as they invested on our training and all that. But to take that much is simply absurd. So I decided to work for myself and become a missing nin. Quickly though, I learned just how hard the life of a missing nin was, until I had the idea to gather mercenaries and lead them."

Suddenly, shurikens flew at him, fast. While surprised by this, the missing nin still reacted fast enough to draw his sword and counter most of the flying weapons. The assault over, he looked at his opponent only to find him missing. He made a one hundred eighty degree turn and parried a kunai strike from Naruto, in a nick of time. Using his sword superiority, he pushed Naruto back and with a downward swing, he slashed his opponent.

Naruto recovered quickly enough to block the swing with his kunai held in reverse position.

"Feisty one, aren't you?" The missing nin joked to an obviously struggling Naruto.

"You talk too much!" The latter replied before smirking.

His opponent seeing this was alarmed and searched for anything amiss. But before he could find it, another Naruto appeared behind him and planted a kunai in his back.

He grunted in pain as he wondered when Naruto made a clone. "When?" He managed to utter to Naruto who looked impassively at him.

"Unlike you, I don't waste time in explaining myself." Naruto replied before nodding to the clone behind the missing nin. The clone, understanding his order, forcibly removed the kunai from the leader's back and proceeded to plant it in his head.

"A good thing you didn't reveal your secret just yet. Unfortunately it is too late for you."

Naruto could only gap in shock seeing someone talking despite having a kunai lodged in their brain. Still he had enough sense to focus on his opponent's words and started wondering what he meant by that and why he still could talk with a kunai in his head. He only had time to widen his eye before a violent explosion rocketed the place.

Once the smoke of the explosion settled down, the missing nin could be seen standing at the same place, without any wounds whatsoever. He searched the area, looking for the remains of his opponent but found none.

"I may talk too much but that doesn't mean I give away any important information. You should never have messed with me boy. Now it is too late to learn the lesson."

His monologue over, he looked at the tent surrounding him, wondering why no one had come yet, with the mayhem this fight had caused.

About fifty meters away, Naruto was crouched and hiding behind a tent. He was sporting several burns on his arms and face but nothing major. _'Good thing I had that clone stationed to observe the fight'_. Indeed, at the last second, he was able to pull off a replacement with his clone, but he still got wounded.

'_But how did he survives? I made sure to hit his vital area so he shouldn't have been able to survive. There were no clones of his around, I made sure of that. And I definitively wounded him, so how?_'

His mind was in turmoil as he wondered what happened. Just to be on the safe side, he once again used his Reiryoku sensing ability to scan the area. He easily detected his opponent walking around the tent. It was when he was about to stop his sensing that he noticed, a blurry spiritual energy. Focusing on it, he sensed, to his surprise, four distinct spiritual energies.

Those persons were deep underground and didn't seem to be moving, although they were still alive. _'I couldn't sense them because they were deep underground. But still that doesn't answer my question, how did he survives?_'

Not wanting to risk himself again until he knew what was going on, he created several clones and send them after his target, while he stayed put and used his sensing ability to observe the battle.

Meanwhile, the leader of the mercenaries, or what was left of them, was walking around his camp, enraged beyond reason. So far, he had visited four tents and only found dead bodies inside.

_'How did that boy kill all of my men without my knowledge? They were weak but not enough to be caught so off guard.'_ He growled inside his mind.

It was ironic for him to say that when, he himself, had been caught off guard not long ago, by the same boy.

Frustrated, he got out of the tent he was in and walked toward another one.

Click.

He heard the telling of a string getting cut. _'Shit'_ He thought, knowing that he had triggered a trap. Without warnings, several kunais and shurikens were launched at him. It was too fast for him to dodge, so he had no choice but to face it, head on. With dexterity worthy of his advanced level, he used a kunai in one hand and his sword on the other to parry every weapon he could. The few he missed made non-lethal wounds and were promptly ignored.

Still, the attacks didn't stop and were even intensified when several paper bombs were mixed with the weapons. By the time he realized it, he sacrificed his sword in favour of moving through hand seals for a Kawarimi. A yellow energy rope moved around his hands and entangled them, preventing his escape. He only had time to look at a grinning Naruto who held the yellow rope in his hand before everything went south.

BOOM!

A series of explosion reverberated through the area and consumed the missing nin, leaving no chance for him to escape again.

Not far away, Naruto paid close attention to the area as he observed the whole place under his sensing ability. That was how he noticed, to his shock, the missing nin Reiryoku disappears for a moment – signifying his death – before reappearing again, as good as new. Though at the same time, one of the unknown Reiryoku, hidden underground, disappeared.

_'Could it be? But how? How could that be?'_ He wondered, shocked by this turn of events. He could deal with someone who liked to hear his voice but this was something else. If his theory was correct, then there existed a link between his target and the people hiding underground, a link that allowed his target to stay alive by stealing those people life.

Knowing what he had to do, he immediately went after the ones hiding underground to dispose of them, while his clones dealt with the missing nin.

Meanwhile, the leader was beyond aggravated now. By two times, he had received a mortal blow and by two times he had to use his trump card. And all of this because of a pre-teen who wanted to play hero. He had no idea who the fuck the kid was or from what village he hailed but one thing for sure, he would smack him all the way to the moon before killing him.

He didn't wait for the smoke to settle down and retrieved his sword on the ground. Then he made an horizontal slash after channelling chakra on his sword.

Naruto's clones, looking at the smoke in anticipation, were caught off guard when a crescent moon made of chakra charged toward them. The wave passed through them, dispelling them in the process, just as the smoke settled down. The missing nin searched the area, trying to find his opponent again. But he didn't have to, as another clone jumped toward him, Kunai at the ready.

Nonchalantly, the missing side stepped the attack, and got inside the clone's guard, before running his blade through its stomach.

"Show yourself wherever you are, boy!" He yelled to no one in particular, knowing that his opponent was somewhere close.

Unfortunately, his call didn't have any effects as weapons of all kinds flew toward him. Even stones were thrown at him. The missing nin greeted his teeth as he was forced to stay put. Also, the constant change in the origins of the thrown made it impossible for him to determine where Naruto was.

Still he wasn't deterred, and instead focused his chakra on his sword again. Using a lapse of time between the flying weapons, he was able to make 360 degree swing, releasing another wave of chakra that flew around him.

The attack was devastating as it destroyed most of the tents in the surrounding area. With a knee on the ground, he stayed there, panting and trying to regain his breath. '_That attack took a lot out of me. At least he won't have any places to hide anymore_.'

A clap resounding in the area interrupted him. He looked up to see Naruto staring at him, his face devoid of any emotions.

"Impressive! This is the first time I see such an attack. Would you care to enlighten me where you learned it?"

The man scoffed. "And why should I tell you anything?"

"I don't know. Maybe because I asked you gently, or because you are about to die?" The coldness in the reply sent chill down the mercenary spine, but the latter dismissed it easily enough.

Though it was at that exact time he understood why Naruto said that after witnessing his rebirth two times already. One particularity of the technique he used to stay alive was his ability to always know the state of the persons he stole the life from. Currently, he sensed his last two bodies being destroyed. This alone, made him reconsider his options as he was now vulnerable and will die if another lethal attack affected him.

Naruto quickly noticed his plight. "I see you are somehow linked to the persons I just killed. Tell me, what kind of jutsu is that?"

His opponent knew he was almost out of chakra unlike Naruto. At this time, the only thing he cared about was escaping from here. Which he tried to do by smashing a smoke bomb in front of him to hide his movements. Then he went through the hand seals for a Shunshin to get out of here.

"_Byakurai_" Naruto lazily intoned as a lightning bolt zipped through the air and pierced his left shoulder.

With a yelp of pain, he was once again sent to his knees and could only feel despair as a clone of the boy locked his arms behind his back.

"Wait! Wait! I can pay you handsomely. I can pay you whatever you want. Just ask and I will deliver. The only thing I ask in exchange is to be left alive. So what you say?"

He desperately tried to save his life. It seemed to be working as Naruto was contemplating his options. Finally, the boy spoke again, but it wasn't something the missing nin expected.

"That can be arranged. But I don't need your money."

"So what do you want?" The hysteria of the man was clear as day.

"I want the jutsu you use to transfer your death to someone else."

For the first since their encounter, Naruto smirked at the man, knowing he had him by the balls. Already he could see dozen of applications for the technique used by his target. It would be foolish of him to dismiss such powerful technique, especially when his repertory of jutsu was that low.

* * *

><p>When he came back to the town Jiraiya and him were staying at, the first thing he noticed was Jiraiya's presence in their inn.<p>

'_Odd, usually he isn't back until late in the night._' He wondered as he moved toward the inn. This had become a routine for him and Jiraiya. Every day he would be the first back at their room and his sensei would join him late at night. He never questioned where the man went and suspected it had something to dosp with his spy network.

Going inside the room, he never expected for Jiraiya to be sitting by the window, looking at the village. He was about to greet him when Jiraiya's voice cut him off.

"We need to talk!" The voice was rough but hard at the same time. Having never seen this side of him, Naruto carefully situated himself beside him and waited for the latter to speak.

"It has been about six months now since we went to this trip, six months that you refused my training…" Naruto was about to interrupt him when the aged ninja shot him a look and promptly shut him up.

"… Six months since I left you to your own device, hoping you would come to your senses. But I can't let this go on anymore."

Naruto narrowed his eyes at the sannin, wondering where the man was going with this speech.

"I understand very well that you don't want to use the source of the hatred you face at home. Believe me, I know that you don't want to give them a reason to mistrust you even more. But this is your live we are talking about." Jiraiya's emotions couldn't be hidden when he said that, and Naruto clearly saw the fear in his eyes, fear for _his_ wellbeing. That was enough for him to let the man finish.

"Do you think Akatsuki will care about things like image when they come after you? No, they won't. They will use everything at hand to get you. And this includes those you care about. You may think that it is your life that is at stake, but truth is, the lives of pretty much everyone in Konoha are in the balance."

Naruto said nothing as he chose to look at the village through the window. Jiraiya saw this but didn't comment on it for now.

"We already lost 6 months worth of training and we can't afford to lost more. We have to begin working on it now or you won't ever be ready."

Jiraiya finished gravely and waited for his student to respond. The situation was becoming dire as time went on and unfortunately it seemed that his ward didn't understand the ramifications of his decision not to train his Jinchuuriki abilities. He sincerely hoped his speech brought a positive reaction from Naruto.

After a while, Naruto finally answered his teacher's unasked question, but by one of his own.

"Do you really have so little faith in me and my skills?" Despite the soft and almost emotionless voice of his student, Jiraiya could detect trace amount of hurt. But for the life of him, he couldn't understand why.

"This is not about faith, it is about time. We don't have time. That is the crux of the matter. If we had more years to train, I would readily believe you could reach the necessary level to fight them off, but like I said, time is running short."

"And you believe I will be ready if I learn how to use the Kyuubi's chakra?"

"You will, I can guarantee you that." Jiraiya shot back with conviction.

Naruto turning around and looked at him directly in the eye, unnerving the sennin.

"Then answer this question, what good will it do against people specifically trained to deal with Jinchuuriki? You said it yourself, I am not the first Jinchuuriki they have dealt with. So what chances do I have when better trained Jinchuuriki lost against them?"

"You underestimate too much the power granted to you by the beast…"

"And you have too much confidence in it." Naruto shot back to a stunned Jiraiya.

"I know very well that you are right in some points but you are making a huge mistake by thinking in such short terms. Like it or not, but relying in this power is like using drugs to become strong. Short-term wise, I will quickly become powerful but in the long run it will only hinder my progress and make me stagnate."

Jiraiya could only look at his student in shock. Of course he knew the consequences of focusing on developing the beast power but he had to admit that the situation was worse enough for him to dismiss it. He had counted on Naruto's naivety to pass it up as a little inconvenience but apparently he had underestimated the boy too much.

'_Great, now he will never agree to learning it!_' He thought desperately.

Naruto sighed as he looked at his sensei. He knew the man was in a difficult situation. He had duty to both the village and him. On one hand he had to insure Naruto's ability to ward off Akatsuki and protect the Kyuubi, which by this point was like a property of Konoha, but at the expense of Naruto's future career. On the other hand he wanted his student to succeed in his ninja career. Obviously Naruto's priority was his career.

"Did you even consider that I was making good progress in my training, without relying on the beast."

Jiraiya looked at his student when the latter said that.

"Already I will become a Chuunin and I was able to beat a jounin in my last mission…"

"A jounin?"

"Oh, don't give me that look. It was bound to happen with the missions I am performing." Naruto rummaged through his clothes and took out a worn out edition of the Bingo book before passing it to Jiraiya.

"Here take this and look at this page. That is the one I dealt with."

Jiraiya executed himself and read the information about the supposed missing nin, Naruto dealt with. What he saw was shocking to say the least. '_Leader of a mercenaries group, High Chuunin before leaving his village, rumoured to be jounin now._' No need to say that he was stunned.

He never paid attention to the mission Naruto did, happy to know that they were low one with little risks whatsoever. But he had half a mind to go back to all the reports Naruto sent back and read it for more information.

"Just… just how strong have you become this past months?" He uttered in complete disbelief. '_To be able to deal with such group, he need to be High Chuunin at least. How did I miss that?_'

For other ninjas, this rate of improvement wasn't much but that wasn't counting the fact that Naruto was below average in almost every area except in Ninjutsu. And even then, he only overwhelmed his opponent with clones and the Rasengan. But to do all the missions he was assigned to would require stealth and careful planning. This means he had greatly improved in everything else at a rate that was unheard of. But he had to be sure so he waited for Naruto reply.

"To be fair, I don't know myself. I like to think that I am making progress and with my rate of improvement, I will be ready for Akatsuki by the time we finish our training trip. That I can assure you."

Seeing Jiraiya unsatisfied face he sighed. "Ok let's make a deal. You want to be sure that I am ready for what is ahead, fine. Every 6 months, we will engage in a spar where I will go all out and you will be able to gauge my progress. This way, you will be able to step in if I am stagnating, deal?"

Jiraiya contemplated Naruto's offer with apprehension. This solved both issue of Akatsuki and Naruto's career.

"Ok. I will give it a shot. But make no mistake, if I feel you aren't going anywhere, the deal is off."

He looked at his student with a grave expression. The boy nodded, understanding where his sensei was coming from. After shaking hands to seal the deal, Naruto smirked before asking a question that would have severe impact on the shinobi world.

"Did you ever wonder what would happen if there was no tailed beast for Akatsuki or anyone to hunt down?"

* * *

><p><strong>Author's<strong> **Note:**

I hope you liked this chapter. You can review to either ask any questions you may have or just for the heck of it.

Next time there will be a time skip. Usually I like writing the training phase of my characters but if I do that, I will only spoil the fun. That is why, next chapter will start at the end of the training trip. Don't worry though, you will get flashback of important events. Also I promise you will like what I have in mind for this story.

_A little challenge, can any of you guess where the mercenaries leader ability to steal someone else life came from? For those who find it, I will give you a virtual cookie lol._

To be continued...


	3. Home, sweet home

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone, I am back with the third chapter of Shinigami. I know some of you have been waiting for this for a while now, so I'm happy to oblige.

First though, I thank you all for reviewing the last chapter and hope you'll keep doing it. It pushes me to write quickly and give you the next installment of the story. Like I said in the previous chapter, this one start at the end of the training trip. But don't worry, any important part will be detailed in flashback or the like.

Also I'd like to congratulate **Slifer1988** and **shadowmaster **for correctly guessing the ability of the mercernary leader, in last chapter.

Finally, for those I haven't replied yet for their review, I'll do so by PM. It is much easier this way, instead of doing so in the chapter.

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 3:<strong>** Home, sweet home**

* * *

><p>2 YEARS AFTER THE START OF THE TRAINING TRIP -<p>

* * *

><p>The elemental countries have always been home to impressive, somewhat mystic sights. This day was no different. At the edge of a clearing stood two persons, ninjas to be exact. The clearing was surrounded by a green scenery made of trees and short grass. Yet, it seemed to be repulsed by the clearing, barring any path for anything other than short grass.<p>

The first of the two ninjas was a woman of medium height. She had a delicate figure and harbored the strangest of hair color: blue. A plain white flower seemed stuck on the side of her hairs. Lastly, she wore a large black cloak with red clouds trimmed on the fabric.

She looked intently at the second ninja whose backside was facing her.

Weird was the appropriate word to describe the second ninja. Like the woman, this one, obviously male, also sported a black cloak with red clouds. Though that is where the similarities ended. His hair colour was a vibrant orange and an Ame headband held his hairs in place. He also had several black piercings upon his face. Lastly his metallic grey eyes held concentric rings surrounding the pupils.

The two ninjas stood in front of a structure they'd never seen before and considering their experience in this world, that was saying something. The structure resembled a large cube and seemed to stretch so far away it wholly covered the clearing. Made of a yellow-like energy, it concealed whatever was inside it, only allowing the curious to see the yellow wall of the cube, but not beyond.

The woman observed her companion's analysis of the barrier. '_Obviously it is a barrier to prevent anyone from interfering with whatever is happening inside_.' The orange haired man, his eyes gazing intently at the structure, appeared more confused than anything. And that was a strange sight to her.

_'Usually, nothing seems to escape his grasp with those eyes of his. I wonder…' _she thought while gazing at his back.

"Anything?" She finally asked the man.

"Nothing conclusive. Whatever that thing is, the energy it uses is out of my grasp. Familiar… yet foreign at the same time." He tentatively tried to explain but a simple look at the woman and he knew she understood nothing.

"Can you break it?"

With but a look, the woman knew he couldn't. This was shocking to her, yet she only raised a curious eyebrow.

The man's gaze seemed to shift to the side, which prompted her to follow suit. Not a second later, two large venus fly-traps dramatically rose from the ground. At first sight, it looked like a human body was caught within the fly-trap, but upon careful observations, the protuberance looked melted to the body and acted like an extension.

Once again, the sight didn't seem to bother the two. Instead they seemed bored by it.

"Konan! Pain!" the newly arrived man called.

"Zetsu!" Konan replied, holding his gaze for a few second before shifting it back to the barrier in front of her.

Pain didn't do the same. Instead he blatantly looked at zetsu, the gaze was so intense it seemed to be peering at the man's soul. The latter could only look back in apprehension. _'I wonder what you see with those eyes of yours?_' He never voiced that thought. Finally Pain stopped starring and concentrated on the barrier again.

"I see you have finally arrived." Zetsu continued, shifting his gaze to Konan.

"Unfortunately, as you can see, it's too late…" He continued but was interrupted.

"What exactly is that barrier?" Konan had shifted her sight back to him again

"Your guess is as good as mine. When I reached this place, the target was resting in the clearing. After I contacted you to pass on the information, I waited for your arrival. Then _he _came and sealed the clearing with the target inside."

Pain's gaze abruptly shifted back to him, his emotionless face conveying nothing.

"This is _his _work?"

"Yes. It happened so fast I had no time to react or do anything. One moment, I was observing the target, next the only thing I can see is this barrier."

Konan skeptically looked at him. "Are you implying what I think? That, _shinigami_ is responsible for this?" Her voice was hard as she questioned Zetsu.

"Not many people dress in complete black and a white mask with a skull etched on it these days, at least not with a short sword on their back. So I stand by my words, it is shinigami."

Konan didn't comment on that, and instead looked at Pain with worry etched on her face. She knew just how much shinigami — _that monster_ — affected her companion. _'Their last encounter has been nothing but tortuous to him. Pain almost razed Takigakure to the ground if it wasn't for Tobi's untimely intervention.'_ She looked at him, fearing the worst.

And she had been right to fear.

Without warning, a violent shockwave rippled through the barrier after Pain uttered the words _Shinra Tensei_. The barrier seemed to contract on itself for a while, as if it would break, then like a roaring animal, the shockwave was sent back at the attacker.

"What the…" Zetsu didn't finish his words and quickly fused back with the ground, escaping the dangerous repulsive power.

Pain looked in shock as his attack was sent back at him. _'Only 2 seconds have passed, I can't use that attack again_'. He dug his feet in the ground and took the hit head on, while Konan's body was scattered in thousand of folded papers.

A few moments later, the attack was over. Zetsu rose back from the ground and observed the area. As expected, a good chunk of the forest behind them was reduced to splintered woods. '_What power!' _He thought before looking at the still standing Pain.

While obviously affected by the attack, somehow, he had survived it wholly. He was about to look for Konan when a storm of paper quickly reformed her body. She looked at Pain, just as surprised as Zetsu was, to see him still standing.

She'd have commented on it if the barrier in front of them didn't abruptly vanish.

Acting as one, the three ninjas rushed through the clearing looking for their target.

They found no one there.

Stopping at its center, they checked their surroundings, tried to sense any chakra residue, looked for a trail left behind. They found none.

"That's impossible. You sure he was there Zetsu?"

"Positive."

"Then how come there is no trace of either his or the target presence? He couldn't have erased everything so fast, could he?" Konan wondered, frustrated by this turn of events.

"Twice!" Pain snarled, prompting Zetsu and Konan to look at him. They were surprised to see him shaking in anger and clenching his fists, hard.

"Twice already that he beat us to a jinchuuriki and took him away. That cannot go on anymore. Zetsu!"

Snapped out of his thoughts, he quickly looked at Pain's eyes.

"I want you to dig up everything you can about _shinigami_. I want to know where he is from, where he lives, what are his abilities, even what he eats in the morning, I don't care. If it concerns him, I want to know. This is your top priority, understood?" Pain barked at him, forcing him to nod his head furiously, clearly frightened by the man before him.

Pain whirled around and gestured for Konan to follow him. "Come! We'll have to consider the six tails Utakata, lost for now!"

Silently, Konan followed him, wondering just how far the animosity between Pain and shinigami would go. And what consequences it'd have on the world.

* * *

><p>Two years had gone by, two years since Naruto left Konoha with Jiraiya, two years since he started a training that would hopefully help him defend himself against Akatsuki. Now that the training trip was over with, they were going back to the village.<p>

The two were walking through the path that led to Konoha. On the middle of the road, Jiraiya laughed, more like giggled loudly, while writing on his notebook. Once in a while he would check the road to ensure they were in the right direction, then he'd go back to his notebook giggling perversely. He peered behind him and spied on Naruto carefully scribbling in his own notebook.

He noted the changes the boy went through. _From a short little boy to a man, I'm awesome like that, turning my students into women candy._ He giggled once again already picturing the village reaction to this new version of Naruto.

Naruto, standing now at five feet seven, had indeed changed a lot. Gone was the little boy. Now in his place was a man with a body wired like a machine. Prominent muscles all over his body, angular face showing his maturation, not an once of fat, that was the new Naruto. He wasn't bulky but he definitely wasn't skinny either, more like a mix of the two.

Like Jiraiya, he was writing in his notebook but unlike the sannin, it wasn't about another perverse story to be published. The object he held in his hand was more like a treasure to him. Because it held every Kido techniques he ever used, from their uses to the mechanics behind it.

Once in a while, he would read it to perfectly recall every spell. He also used it to write ideas of new spells.

"Are you happy to be back?" He heard Jiraiya says in the distance.

"You bet I am! First thing I do, is to go to Ichiraku ramen." He exclaimed while closing his notebook and having it disappear in a poof of smoke.

"Really? Two years away from the village and the first thing you do is eat ramen? Why do I always get the mental ones!" Jiraiya cried to the heaven, sniffing loudly.

"You're gonna play that card again? Seriously ero — sennin!"

"Shut up. You don't know the hardships I've endured with you and the yondaime."

"Yeah yeah! We don't understand the depth of perversity, we are not worthy! Bla bla." Naruto mocked the sannin who huffed in exasperation and looked in front of him.

"I can see the village looming in the horizon. Wanna race?"

"Not this time. I've been training for so long, I got to rest sometimes you know? And you call yourself a teacher? Pff"

Jiraiya grumbled at his student remark, yet he only smiled at the boy. _Yes he has definitely changed._ He told himself. Before their trip, Naruto would have taken any chances to show off his supposedly awesome power. But now he didn't held much interest in doing so. He knew his capabilities and needed no one to tell him if he was strong or not.

Like the boy once said, _stop bragging and let's our fists do the talking_.

Before long, they stood at the village entrance. People seemed to freely walk in and out the village but they paid them no mind.

"This is it then!" Jiraiya put his hand on Naruto's left shoulder. The latter just smiled as he looked at the village, admiring his design and committing to memory every details he could.

"Yeah, home, sweet home."

"Ok, first stop is Tsunade's office. We're already late as it is, better not make her wait any longer." Jiraiya shuddered as he imagined the reaction of the tempered woman. A ghostly feeling surged through his body as if remembering all the pain Tsunade ever inflicted upon him.

Though, when he looked at Naruto he found the boy running inside the village, and not in the right direction.

"See you later sucker! I've a ramen stand to raid." Naruto's yell reverberated through the place, forcing everyone to look at his direction. At once they were reminded that Naruto was scheduled to be coming back soon. A ghost of a smile appeared on most of their faces as they recalled the pranks the boy used to play to get attention.

They all had the same thing in mind: Konoha was gonna be very lively for the next few days.

* * *

><p>The ramen stand hadn't changed much over the years. Still a small restaurant, it was a rather plain looking building with chairs visible from outside. Several white curtains served to hide the customers upper bodies as a way to give them privacy.<p>

When Naruto reached the stand, he noticed that some of the chairs were filled but he paid no mind to it. He moved the curtains away as he got inside the stand.

"Teuchi oji — san, Ayame nee — chan, your favourite customer is back!" His shoot sounded like a gong in the small piece and attracted attention to him.

_Naruto?_ With eyes wide, Ayame — who was in the kitchen — swiftly sneaked a peek at the entrance to confirm she wasn't hearing things. But when she saw the boy she considered her little brother, she quickly ran at him.

Naruto seeing this smiled happily and opened his arms wide to the running girl. Without hesitation, Ayame hugged him as if her life depended on it.

"Naruto you are back! I missed you so much!" The girl rambled as she checked Naruto from head to toes, like a mother would do to her son. She pushed Naruto away to get a better look at him and smiled.

"My gosh! You have changed so much! I wouldn't have recognised you if it wasn't for your whiskers and hairs."

"Of course I changed. I'm not the little boy that ran around the village playing pranks you know?" Naruto grinned as he hugged his sister figure once more.

"How have you been Naruto — kun? Did your training trip goes well?"

"It was awesome nee — chan. There is so much I gotta tell you. We travelled all over the countries. We visited amazing places I wouldn't even known existed."

As he talked, Naruto took a seat while Ayame listened to him with rapt attention. He told her of the places he visited with Jiraiya, of the adventures they had while travelling. He recounted everything to her. After a while, the other customers got caught up in his stories and listened too.

"Hey I forgot to tell you, I made chuunin a year ago." As he said this he grinned, obviously proud of his accomplishment. She could tell Naruto had changed a lot. _He seems more lively and genuinely enjoys his life_. She told herself with a smile on the lips.

"So how long have you been back in the village?" Teuchi asked his favourite customer, having joined the group when Naruto was counting his trip.

"I just came back and I decided to visit you first."

"Visit us or have a bowl of ramen?" Ayame grinned as she said that and soon the whole stand erupted in laughter.

Naruto sheepishly scratched the back of his head, his face red in embarrassment. "Well, that too!"

They laughed even more at his expense but he just smiled at them, happy to be back home after so long.

An hour or so, and several bowls of ramen later, Naruto left the stand, promising himself to come back as soon as he could. As he turned the corner leading to the stand, a voice he hadn't heard in a while stopped him.

"Naruto?"

Slowly turning around, he faced the owner of the voice and widened his eyes as he saw who it was.

"Sakura? Is that you?" He stuttered a little but that was to be expected. He certainly wasn't prepared to see a mature version of his old teammate after all. Appraising her for a while, he finally spoke what he had in mind.

"You've definitely bulked up, haven't you?"

WHAM!

He was slammed on the opposing wall courtesy of an angry Sakura who looked at him her fist raised.

"You on the other hand haven't changed much. I'll show you how bulky I've become."

Naruto backed away from the enraged woman, wondering why his mouth always betrayed him. A short while later Sakura had calmed down enough for the two to talk.

"I didn't know you were coming back so soon. I thought your training trip would last a few more weeks or so?"

Naruto grinned as she asked him that question. "That's because I'm just that awesome. They finally recognised my power and now I'm back ready to kick ass."

Sakura found herself grinning at his enthusiasm. _This is certainly refreshing. Seeing him so happy, I've really missed him, haven't I?_ She kept observing the blonde as he gave a short version of his training trip.

"I heard you made chuunin, Sakura — chan. I am one too. How awesome is that?" He finally asked her a question to which she was too happy to respond.

"Yeah, Tsunade — shishio told me of your promotion. Something like you didn't want to be left behind by us." She teased him but Naruto just pouted.

This went on for a moment, the two recounting their respective experience with a sannin, Sakura being the most talkative one. However, she quickly noticed that Naruto remained tight-lipped for some reason about his training. This of course shocked the hell out of her because, as far as she remembered, Naruto had always been a show-off. She put it at the back of her mind for now, all too happy to have her teammate back.

While she was talking, Naruto abruptly shifted his gaze to a small post a few meters away from him. Wondering what was going on, she did the same and not a second later, an anbu appeared on it, directly looking at them.

"What can we do for you anbu — san?" She heard Naruto said.

"Naruto — san, hokage — sama requests your presence immediately in her office." His job done, the anbu vanished again, not even waiting for Naruto's acknowledgement of his request. He knew the boy would go to the hokage's office. It was common knowledge that when you received instruction by an anbu, you followed it.

While Naruto discussed with the anbu, Sakura looked at his back in shock and wonder. _Did he just sensed that ninja before he appeared? Even I with my impressive sensing skills didn't notice that anbu until he was right here. Just how much have you improved Naruto?_

Naruto looked at her again and smiled. "You heard the man. Better go and meet Tsunade baa — chan before she gets angry."

Sakura absentmindedly nodded and unconsciously formed a ram seal before she disappeared in a swirl of leaves. If she had stayed longer, she'd have noticed Naruto looking above her shoulder toward an incoming Temari and Shikamaru.

While he should have been looking at Shikamaru — having been friend with him for a while now — he looked at Temari dead in the eyes. Tension seemed to build between the two as Temari shot him a dirty look, which he shrugged off, knowing exactly what this was about. He promptly vanished the same way Sakura did, leaving behind a bewildered Shikamaru.

"Was that Naruto?" He asked out loud to Temari who shrugged noncommittally and went on her way. Shikamaru looked at her a little confused, but he quickly deemed the matter too troublesome and left it at that.

* * *

><p><strong>TSUNADE'S OFFICE -<strong>

* * *

><p>When Naruto pushed open the door to Tsunade's office, he didn't expect to fight for his life. The office was supposed to be one of the safest place in the village after all, yet here he was, dodging flying furnitures left and right.<p>

"YOU DITCH OUR MEETING FOR RAMEN?" Tsunade yelled at the boy as he ducked a flying chair that ought to be classified as lethal weapon. It came too dangerously close for comfort.

"You haven't met any of us in two years and the first thing you think about is food? I'M GONNA KILL YOU GAKI!" Naruto sweat dropped as he observed Tsunade enraged form. Jiraiya stood behind, trying his best to calm her down.

"Calm down Tsunade — hime, he just wanted to sneak a peek at Ayame." If that was supposed to calm her, it did the exact opposite, as he received a back hand for his efforts.

"I'll deal with you later Jiraiya. As for you…" She looked at the fearful Naruto who was backed against the wall once again. _This seems to be happening a lot these days._ He told himself while closing his eyes expecting the beating of a lifetime.

Instead he felt someone envelops him in a crushing hug. Opening his eyes, he saw that it was Tsunade.

"You idiot, I missed you so much."

Sighing and a little disappointed at himself for making her sad, he hugged her back. "Sorry Tsunade baa — chan. I missed you too."

The two stayed like that for a while, under the watchful gazes of Jiraiya and Sakura. They had assisted at the rather comical scene and couldn't help but smile at the happy reunion.

Though, the happy scene was over quickly when Tsunade smacked Naruto's head, hard.

"This is for making me wait." She grumbled while moving back behind her desk. Upon sitting on her comfortable chair, she gazed at Naruto sheepish form.

"You didn't have to hit so hard baa — chan."

"And you didn't have to make me wait. I'm the hokage after all." She finished smugly to a grumbling Naruto who muttered '_not for long'_. Fortunately it wasn't heard and everything went back to normal, as the tension in the room was lifted.

"So Naruto, how was your training?" Tsunade finally asked, a little too eager for Naruto's taste.

In an instant, the rather jovial ambience was drained. Naruto held a guarded stance as he looked at Jiraiya then at Tsunade. He didn't need to look at Sakura to know she too was eager to learn about his training trip.

"I'm sure Jiraiya already filled you in on everything you needed to know. So why are you asking me this?"

"Because I want to heard it from you. Jiraiya has a tendency of exaggerating things." The hokage replied to Naruto who didn't seem that moved by it.

"I trained non-stop for 2 long years and I don't really want to think about anything related to training right now." He smiled at Tsunade, with a touch of pleading in his eyes.

Tsunade understood perfectly well his reasonings and it was true that she already had the necessary information about Naruto's current level. '_It is just so unbelievable that I wanted to hear it from his mouth._' She thought while observing a frowning Sakura.

"You seem very careful about everything related to your training trip. You don't have to be ashamed if you didn't improve as much as you wanted Naruto." Sakura said playfully at Naruto who just smiled at her.

"Oh it's quite the contrary Sakura. Going by Jiraiya's report, his training brought unexpected results."

Sakura looked at her sensei in wonder. "How so?"

"Simple really, among your generation, only Neji has been made jounin. And Naruto's own jounin exam will be tomorrow. Suffice to say I wouldn't even consider him jounin material if that wasn't the case."

Sakura widened her eyes upon hearing it. '_Jounin already? Just how much has he improved?_' She wondered, stealing glance at the boy who seemed oblivious to it all.

"Tomorrow? I thought I had something like a week to rest before the exam? That's not fair baa — chan!"

"Life isn't fair gaki, so deal with it." Tsunade shot back to an annoyed Naruto.

"What are you complaining about anyway? Think about all the girls that'll chase you once they heard you made jounin." Jiraiya added his own cent while giggling perversely.

"Trust Jiraiya — sama to think about women at a time like this." A new voice was heard coming from the balcony.

As one, the occupants of the room whirled around to face the speaker. With a book held on his left hand, Kakashi read it nonchalantly in front of the two sannins and his late students.

"Kakashi — sensei, I haven't seen you in a while!" Sakura exclaimed happily. She hadn't seen him for almost a year now because she was busy with her training and hospital duties. Adding Kakashi's re-entrance in the anbu black ops, seeing each other was simply not possible.

"Ahh Sakura — chan, looks at you. You've grown. With this, almost all members of Team 7 are reunited." Kakashi replied but quickly cursed himself for mentioning Team 7 when he saw Sakura's depressed look. Expecting an outburst from Naruto, he quickly faced the boy hoping to placate him.

But that wasn't necessary.

"You resumed your training!" Naruto asked, more like affirmed to the jounin. The latter was a little taken aback by Naruto's impassive attitude about their missing teammate. He chalked it up to Jiraiya having found a way for the boy to deal with the betrayal.

"You noticed? Maybe our fight tomorrow won't be as boring as I thought, then!" He smiled at the boy, trying to stir him up. Rattling the boy had always been so easy, what with him being so self conscious of his flaws.

But the room became still as Naruto's body stance completely changed. He looked at Kakashi with his blue eyes. Eyes that usually were full of mischief and inner cunning.

They were blank now.

If the eyes are mirrors to the soul, then Kakashi could safely affirm that Naruto had no soul in him.

He saw nothing, not even a shred of emotion behind those blue pools, only the promise of death.

"Na…ru…to?" He slowly uttered.

The look was gone in an instant and the usual happy Naruto was back, smiling happily at his former sensei.

"You'll be my opponent Kakashi — sensei? That's great, I have loads of new moves to show you." The blonde grinned happily, completely oblivious to Kakashi awkwardness.

Later on, the jounin would learn that the interaction only lasted a second.

"Yes you will gaki and I hope you're ready." Tsunade said to the boy before ushering Naruto and Sakura out as she had another meeting to attend to.

* * *

><p>Once Naruto and Sakura left Tsunade's office, Jiraiya moved to close the door behind them. Then he applied several paper seals on the walls and the door.<p>

"The room is sealed. Now we can speak freely." He said to the two other occupants of the room.

Kakashi was the first to go as he looked at the toad sannin with a troubled look.

"Was I dreaming?" The question was vague but the recognition look on Jiraiya's face showed that he understood.

"So you noticed?"

"Notice what?" Tsunade inquired, not really sure if she followed.

With a sigh, Jiraiya moved across the room and sat on a guest chair, facing Tsunade and Kakashi. The expression on his face seemed resigned, like he didn't want to talk about something but was forced to.

"What I am about to tell is NOT something to take lightly. It all started…"

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Tsunade interrupted him, clearly not seeing where this conversation was going. " Am I missing something there?" She never liked to be out of the loop. Usually she'd react, violently, to being ignored. Jiraiya knew this, so he quickly filled her in what he was talking about.

"It's about Naruto's _second personality_."

While Kakashi had a look of understanding, as if piecing an illusive puzzle together, Tsunade wasn't fairing so well. Jiraiya knew this so he added. "Everything will be explained, so hear me out first, ok?"

The two Konoha ninjas nodded before Jiraiya started again.

"A few weeks after our depart from Konoha, I tried to teach Naruto how to use the Kyuubi's chakra…"

Tsunade's widened her eyes at that, before narrowing them.

"Don't look at me like that. You certainly guessed I'd teach the gaki how to use the Kyuubi. It was the only solution I had to get him where he needed to be skill-wise."

"Yes I knew you'd do that, but I thought it'd be later on in the trip, not so soon."

"I had my reasons. Can we move on now? Good!"

Not waiting for her agreement, he continued. "As I said, I tried to teach him to use Kyuubi's chakra… but he refused. He didn't want to rely on that energy and wanted to be strong by himself. So we had a fight of a sort. Afterward I refused to teach him anything new until he accepted to learn it."

He could see Kakashi and Tsunade indignant stare but at this point he couldn't care less. He had wanted to make a survivor out of Naruto and he'd have done it again.

"So for a while, the boy trained by himself. At first it was only meditation, but later on it changed to something else. I can't tell you what because by that time I couldn't spy on him anymore."

Jiraiya raised his hand at the incredulous look he was given and to stop any further interruption. He understood well why they were shocked. He was an infiltrator and stealth expert. Also it was very difficult to stop him when he wanted to spy on someone. To learn that a genin could elude him was shocking to say the least.

"I don't know how, even to this day, but Naruto is somehow able to block anyone from sensing him. But that doesn't apply to him apparently. If he wants, he can find you no matter what. Before long, it wasn't me that decided when we saw each other, but the opposite. If he felt like it, he'd vanish for a time and only when he had finished whatever the hell he was doing, would he appear again."

"You are saying you couldn't watch over him? What if something happened to him when he vanished like that? What if Akatsuki attacked at that moment, what'd have happened then?" Tsunade almost yelled at her fellow sannin. Almost being the key word, yet her voice was loud enough to stop him dead on track.

"Don't you think I know that? You weren't there when I had to wait until the boy came back, hoping nothing had happened to him. Fortunately I talked with him about a year or so ago. He agreed to at least give his position and health state to the toad. That way, the summons can warn me in case something bad happens."

Chastised, Tsunade slowly nodded, ushering him to continue.

"Anyway, it was during that time that he started doing C-rank missions to gain experience and _to become chuunin at least_ by the time he came back."

"Does this story lead somewhere?" Kakashi lazily wondered. Not that he was bored. He certainly wanted to learn of his student adventures but he felt that they were losing the point here.

"I was getting there! Youngsters these days." Jiraiya grumbled at being interrupted once again.

"I don't know what exactly, but something happened during his first mission. Something shook him so much that he thought of humans as no better than animals."

The admission shocked Tsunade and Kakashi. But this time they waited for an explanation.

"We had a discussion about that, and I think I was somehow able to stir him away from that negative thinking. After that, he continued his mission and we didn't have any more issues for a few months."

A pointed look from Jiraiya was enough to reassure them that the matter was dealt with.

"After six months, I couldn't wait anymore for him to change his mind about the Kyuubi chakra, so I confronted him. That is when I learned that in only 6 months he was able to go from subpar genin to low jounin." He ignored Tsunade and Kakashi stunned looks.

"But I wasn't satisfied enough so we made a deal. Every six months we'd have a spar to determine if he was making progress or not. In the off chance that he wasn't, he'd learn how to draw on the beast chakra."

It was then that Jiraiya sighed. "For a time, everything seemed fine, but when I went with him on one of his mission, I witnessed something very frightening."

"What was it? What happened?" Tsunade inquired.

He looked deeply inside her eyes, seemingly crushed by an invisible weight. "Naruto's second personality happened!"

Seeing their confused gazes, he elaborated. "You remember I told you Naruto almost broke after his first mission, but that I was able to patch him up, right? Well, that wasn't the case apparently. Whatever happened made him create a personality strong enough to do what he has to. Someone able to see the world for what it is and deal with it. Someone whose core his geared for hell. Someone whose sole purpose is to deal with whatever Naruto deems abnormal. This is the second personality Kakashi saw earlier, even for the briefest instant."

He finished ominously. The other two could only look at the sannin bewildered.

"Is it gonna be a problem later on?" Tsunade inquired.

"It depends. That personality surfaces mostly during battle or when Naruto sees something that goes against his morals. So basically, I doubt you'll face it anytime soon."

"So it's harmless to us?" This time Kakashi asked the question.

"I wouldn't say so. Let me make this clear for the both of you. Should you ever face that personality, under no circumstance are you to confront him, even with words. He is not human! He has no emotion whatsoever. His only purpose is to eradicate whatever caused Naruto to enter this state in the first place."

"But what about our fight tomorrow?" Kakashi wondered, already regretting suggesting himself to test the boy.

"That wouldn't count. Despite everything, Naruto completely controls that personality. If he has no grudge against you…" Jiraiya smirked at Kakashi. "…then he'd know when to stop."

Somewhat reassured that he wouldn't be in a life or death battle the next day, Kakashi asked the question he and Tsunade had in mind for a while now.

"Did he learn how to draw on the beast energy?" He uttered softly, as if afraid to ask.

Jiraiya stared at him with an intense look, before answering.

"He never did!"

If they weren't shocked before, they were now. They couldn't imagine what level Naruto needed to be, for Jiraiya to deem the use of the Kyuubi unnecessary. A beast whose power was so great he could topple mountain with a flick of his tails.

In the end, only one question remained in their mind.

_How strong had Naruto become?_

* * *

><p><strong>TRAINING GROUND 7 - <strong>

* * *

><p>The next day found Naruto and Kakashi in training ground 7. They were here for a reason, Naruto's evaluation and possible increase in rank.<p>

The jounin exam was something closely kept secret for every village. They couldn't afford to let their enemies know what was required of their jounin. If they knew, then they could easily guess what kind of abilities Konoha elite ninjas had and this would be bad.

People have speculated that a ninja needed to master two elemental manipulations to reach that level. That wasn't completely true. Obviously if a ninja had such ability, it was an asset but nothing more. There were jounins in Konoha who even had difficulties controlling one element, yet they were strong enough to be granted the title.

In the end, it was all about a ninja level. If a ninja was strong enough to beat or compete against any jounin out there, then he was granted the title. It was that simple.

The silence in training ground 7 was so heavy the flapping wings of a fly could easily be heard. Naruto and Kakashi stood twenty meters apart, mentally preparing themselves for the battle to come.

On the sidelines, Tsunade and Jiraiya, along with the three acting judges for this proceeding – Asuma, Kurenai and Gai – gazed at the two ninjas. Beside Jiraiya, they knew nothing of Naruto's skills, but based on the sannin recommendations, they expected a huge improvement on the boy's part.

Kakashi, taking a deep breath, looked at his one time student. "This test begins when I give you the start, ok?"

Naruto, with a smile on his lips, nodded before closing his eyes. When he opened them a moment later, it was like a different person replaced him.

Gone was the goofy Naruto, in his stead stood an emotionless human, a war machine devoid of feelings.

This didn't go unnoticed by the audience, as the air around them seemed to freeze as if hell had been brought on earth. While before they could feel Naruto's presence through his chakra, now they felt nothing.

It was like his chakra had been erased from existence. They knew he was right in front of Kakashi, as they could see him. Yet they got the feeling they would lose sight of him the first time they blinked.

This was a strange sensation for them, one that didn't bode well to whoever fought the young chuunin.

"Do any of you feel his chakra?" Kurenai questioned her fellow judges in wonder.

"I don't. Whatever the hell he did, somehow erased his chakra presence." Asuma replied with a serious expression on his face.

"If that's the case…" Gai continued with an uncharacteristically hardened expression. The situation demanded no less from him, because no one had ever erased their presence in such a way, at least none they knew of.

On the training ground, Kakashi narrowed his eyes as he looked at the new Naruto in front of him. _Be very careful with the _other_ Naruto, Kakashi. He's ruthless with his opponents. _He recalled Jiraiya's words and couldn't help but shudder in anticipation.

"Go!" With but a word, he gave the start of the battle.

Not wanting to wait for whatever Naruto had in store for him, he created an earth clone, twenty meters on his left and replaced himself with it before starting the handseals for a fireball, all in less than a second.

Like a comet, Naruto charged the clone and rammed a kunai in its gut. Without stopping he rushed toward the original Kakashi and delivered a straight kick on the jounin, forcing the latter to stop his sequence.

Acting on autopilot, Kakashi pared the attack with his crossed forearms. Yet the blow was strong enough to push him back a few meters. He recovered just in time to dodge a kunai that flew by his face.

But at once, Naruto was upon him again, delivering a flurry of punches and kicks, never giving the jounin the chance to come to his senses. Whenever Kakashi tried to get some distance, Naruto would throw a weapon at him and use his phenomenal speed to close the gap.

Not used to such fighting style, Kakashi was quickly overwhelmed and dropped his guard, long enough for Naruto to take advantage of it. Getting inside Kakashi's guard, Naruto punched his ribs, almost cracking them, and face-palmed his kidney before finishing with a powerful two-fisted punch on the abdomen.

"_Sokotsu!_" Naruto cried out upon making contact with Kakashi.

The attack was so strong Kakashi was propelled several meters away, until he came to a stop, having used his hands to get a grip on the ground.

Coughing blood, he looked at Naruto, eyes wide. _He's ludicrously fast. I can barely follow his movements now. To hell with Jiraiya's advices, I gotta use the sharingan if I don't want it to get any worse_. He told himself as he lifted his headband covering his sharingan eye.

With his trump card now available to him, he searched Naruto's gaze until he made eye contact with the blonde. _Got you!_ He thought as he immediately ensnared the boy in a genjutsu.

As he expected, Naruto's body froze immediately afterward. To the boy, it felt like his body was being constricted by an invisible force.

Using the distraction, Kakashi went through handseals and put his fingers beside his mouth, "_Katon : Gokyaku no jutsu_" expelling a huge fireball at the unmoving Naruto.

The audiences could only widen their eyes as the attack collided with Naruto. They would have rushed on the field then and there, if it wasn't for the smirk Jiraiya sported.

They looked at Kakashi just in time to see him parry a kunai strike from Naruto. The boy had appeared out of nowhere, standing behind the jounin, as if he had always been there, which made them wonder just what happened.

Unlike them, Kakashi didn't have time to guess, as he was expertly countering Naruto's kunai strikes. With his sharingan on, he had an easier time defending against Naruto's onslaught. Once again their kunai clashed, with Naruto holding his own in a reverse grip.

Twirling the weapon in his right hand, the boy used his left to launch a shuriken at close range. Kakashi moved his head aside, dodging the weapon, while snaking his hands around Naruto's, capturing the appendage in a vice grip.

"I got you now!" He exclaimed in triumph while jumping backward.

'_Now he'll either follow my movements and expose himself or risk breaking his hand by staying put._'

But Naruto had other plans as he muttered under his breath. "_Bakudo 8: Seki_"

A small sphere of blue energy formed between Naruto's hand and Kakashi's grip. Upon touching the two appendages, a violent force repulsed the two, at the same time freeing him.

Kakashi having already jumped, was completely vulnerable to Naruto who put his kunai horizontally in front of him, his other hand touching the base of the weapon. Then a yellow energy gathered the length of it before being fired at Kakashi in a wide arc.

"_Hado 32: Okasen_"

Kakashi looked in shock at the attack, having never witnessed a technique of the sort, yet his instincts prevailed and he flew through hand seals. He finished just in time for his thrust right palm to meet the attack head on.

"_Raikiri._" A thunder sound was heard as his right forearm was covered by blue lightning.

The two attacks collided and battled for a second, before Kakashi's cleaved through the yellow blast.

At the same time, he finally touched ground, putting him out of harm way. Not wasting a moment, as he saw Naruto blurring toward him again, he moved his lightning covered arm in front of him. '_You won't get close this time._'

"_Raiju Hashiri" – Lightning Beast running_

In a blink of an eye, the lighting covering Kakashi's hand was transformed into a hound that covered the distance between the two, in an instant.

Seeing the approaching beast, Naruto widened his eyes before backpedalling, dodging the attack. But to his horror, the beast seemed to pursue him. While retreating, he looked at Kakashi and saw him guiding the attack with his hand.

With but a short observation, he already knew the specific of the technique and stopped at approximately forty meters away from Kakashi. In front of him, the beast stopped too, as if unable to move forward.

Tsunade looked at the battle with a look of surprise. "He was able to deduce the range limit of the attack that fast? Just what the hell did you teach that gaki?" Despite talking to Jiraiya, she never once looked away from the battle, not wanting to miss anything.

Jiraiya did the same while answering. "This is all him or that personality of his. In combat, it's like he dismiss everything unimportant around him and focus solely on the battle at hand. Because of such concentration, his observation skills are top notch."

On the battlefield, Kakashi grumbled under his breath as he looked at the impassive Naruto. _'Not only did he figure out the range limit of the attack, but it looks like he also knows I can't move while using this technique. Keeping it active is only draining my chakra reserve. I just wasted it for nothing.'_

Ready to dispel his attack, he was surprised when the Naruto in front of him exploded in a puff of smoke. Simultaneously, another appeared about 10 meters to his left with his palm outstretched in his direction.

"_Hado 33: Sokatsui_" He heard the boy whispers just as a veritable torrent of scorching blue flames was sent his way.

Even from the distance, he could feel the heat of the flames. Already blisters were forming on his hand. With a last desperate move, he launched the still living hound at Naruto, while disabling his connection to the attack.

As the flames finally reached and engulfed him, Naruto was forced to make a somersault to escape the lightning beast. Landing safely out of harm way from his own attack, he observed the flames slowly recede, leaving behind an unrecognizable ground… but no traces of Kakashi.

'_He escaped the attack then!_' Naruto thought dispassionately.

The ground grumbled under his feet, before hands caught them. Naruto looked down and saw kakashi smiling face, as he pulled him underground.

Or he would have, if not for Naruto quick reaction. The chuunin leaned toward the ground and thrust his palm toward it. Just before the moment of impact, a blue ball of swirling energy formed on his palm.

"_Rasengan!_" He voiced as the attack collided with the ground in an explosion.

'_To be able to materialize that attack instantly… he definitely mastered the Rasengan, that's for sure._' Jiraiya observed with a smile on his face.

When the dust settled down, Naruto stood alone on the field, implying that the Kakashi he hit was a clone. Noticing a shadow that covered him from the sky, he quickly looked up to see a falling Kakashi with a lightning coated kunai.

He deftly sidestepped the attack, letting the jounin attack slam on the ground. Not deterred, Kakashi rose with an uppercut lightning fist.

Time seemed to slow down for the two as Kakashi's fist passed a few centimeters from Naruto's face. The latter having slightly moved his head aside. While Kakashi slowly rose from the ground, he locked his gaze with Naruto's, hoping to see even an ounce of feeling…

He saw none.

Though he felt Naruto's palm touch his unprotected ribs. Dread came over him as he knew he was done for.

"_Hado 63: Raikoho_"

Even Jiraiya widened his eyes upon hearing the name of the attack. He never got the chance to warn Kakashi as a violent yellow lightning struck him mercilessly, propelling him an hundred or so meters away from the impassive boy.

At once, Tsunade had reacted and was already beside Kakashi slumped and unconscious form, administering first aid. She left behind a stunned group of jounins who couldn't believe their eyes.

"He beat Kakashi?" The words seemed foreign to Asuma's mouth, his cigarettes long forgotten on the ground.

None of them had any answer to him, being as shocked as they were.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's<strong> **Note:**

I hope you liked the chapter. You can review to either comment or ask any questions you may have.

See you soon for the next chapter.


	4. Something to come

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hi everyone. It has been a while (a year damn!) since I updated any of my stories and I really have nothing to say other than I was at a turning point in my life. Several things were dumped on me and I had to choose between keeping writing at the risk of jeopardizing my future or moving on for a while. I think my choice is pretty obvious. I love writing and reading stories out there but let's us be honest, this won't be feeding me, so I think you'll all understand.

Anyway, forget about my ramblings. The only things you need to know is that I'm back!

Some people asked me if I had given up on my stories, and I only have one reply to them: Hell no!

I will keep writing whenever possible and do my best to see these stories through.

As of right now, I've edited all chapter of my story "Naruto the true ninja". Meaning a new chapter is coming soon.

Now let's talk about this story "Shinigami". This chapter is shorter than usual because I'm slowly getting used to my style again. You'll certainly notice the drop in quality (at least I did notice), but hopefully it's temporarily.

Now I present you the fourth chapter of Shinigami. Enjoy!

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4: Something to come<strong>

* * *

><p>Tsunade was sitting in her office, alone. With her hands positioned under her chin and the dimly lighted room, she gave the impression of a woman with the weight of the world on her shoulder.<p>

'_Only three years... No! less than three years and he's already this powerful._' The object of her thought was none other than Naruto.

A few days had gone by since Naruto's exam for Jounin grade. A few days since she had had Kakashi hospitalized. Every once and then, she got flashes of the fight, flashes that both elated and scared her.

'_The way he moved. The way he analyzed every situation. The way he used his skills. Everything was calculated. No chances were given to his opponent to come up with a viable strategy._' She thought, more than a little shaken by her observations.

She couldn't imagine what had happened to Naruto — the little boy that always boasted his strength even though he had none — for him to become such a... cold ninja? No that wasn't the right term... mechanical maybe? Anyway, she didn't know how it was possible.

'_Maybe it's a consequence of gaining so much power in so little time..._' She thought frowning. Obviously Naruto had become powerful, that was for sure, but she wasn't sure she liked the consequences.

Jiraiya had told them that it was just his battle side and that Naruto still was the joyful boy he had been. But seeing Naruto's battle side was enough to make her wonder if his human side was anything but a mask. The real question that was tugging at her the wrong way was _which side was the mask_?

She was interrupted when light reached her face as the entrance to her office was pushed open. Raising her head she saw — and immediately scowled — the elders Koharu and Homura. Without a word she gestured for them to take a seat in front of her. At the same time she went back to work by shuffling the paperwork on her desk.

After a moment of silence, Homura rattled his throat to gain Tsunade's attention.

"Yes?"

Ignoring Tsunade's lack of proper manners, Homura greeted the shodaime granddaughter. Koharu though didn't appreciate the disrespect and made it know.

"Where I come from, we greet guests!" Her voice was cold but Tsunade didn't seem the least bit concerned.

"And where I come from, guests request entry instead of acting like they own the place. Of course we both know we don't come from the same place." The haughty tone wasn't missed by Koharu who silently dismissed the comment even though she had just been insulted.

"What can I do for you honorable elders?" Tsunade finally addressed the two knowing they never came for a courtesy visit.

Slowly shifting his footing and joining his hands above his thighs, Homura answered her question.

"It is about Naruto Uzumaki promotion."

"What about it?" Tsunade immediately narrowed her eyes at the elders.

"We feel that granting the boy _Jounin _rank is too soon. And that's not even taking into account the sannin rights you gave him."

"We'll come back to the last point later on. First let's talk about his Jounin status." Homura cut off Koharu speech before she became sidetracked.

"And what is there to talk about?" Tsunade replied sharply. "Last I remember, to become a Jounin a ninja must fulfill two conditions: be a Chuunin at the time of the examination and succeed in taking down a Jounin level ninja during a full out battle. Both conditions were met in Naruto's case, which is the reason he was granted Jounin status…"

"Yes, but Naruto is a special case!" Koharu cut off Tsunade in the middle of her explanation, irritating the later.

"Are you implying that because of Naruto's status as a Jinchuuriki, he cannot become a Jounin?" Tsunade asked threateningly.

"Don't be stupid Tsunade! This isn't the first Jinchuuriki to have fooled ground in Konoha. We are not stupid enough to discriminate the boy for this, especially knowing the identity of the previous Jinchuuriki."

"Sorry but your behavior indicates otherwise Homura. If not then why would you dispute this promotion?"

"The boy is young…"

"He faced the scorn of the adults since he was young!" Tsunade shot.

"He does not have the experience…"

"He has been on dozen of C and B ranked missions and every time they were completed beyond expectation and with glowing recommendation from the clients!"

"He is not strong enough…"

"He beat Kakashi, one of our strongest jounin!"

"Enough!" Homura yelled stopping the two bickering women. "We do not deny is ability to be a Jounin, far from it actually…"

"Then what is this visit about then?"

"Do you deny the threat posed by Akatsuki?"

This took Tsunade off guard. She didn't see what that had to do with this promotion.

"What does Akatsuki has to do with his promotion?"

"Everything!" Koharu yelled, having finally enough of the situation they were in. '_Can't she see what such promotion would cause?_' she thought exasperated.

"I don't quite follow."

"We can see that!" Koharu sneered at her.

"A jounin is expected to go on mission outside and most of the time, far away from the village. This increase the chances of the boy coming into contact with Akatsuki. This is a risk we cannot afford at this time."

"And what do you suggest then? That I lock him up in the village? Do you think he will accept such thing?"

A pointed look from the elders answered her question.

"And what make you think that Akatsuki will give up because Naruto is in the village?"

"They have never been bold enough to attack a Jinchuuriki inside his village!" Koharu supplied.

"There is a start for everything." Tsunade shot back. "Be that as it may, I can't and won't have Naruto's promotion denied from him. He worked too hard for it. And as the Hokage I have final say on who get promoted or not. My decision is final!"

Knowing that they had lost that battle, they went back to the second issue of the day.

"And what about the sannin rights? Why would you give him such rights in the first place? This is going too far." Homura wondered out loud.

"What do you think Naruto did this past 3 years with Jiraiya? The boy is supposed to take over Jiraiya's spy network. As such he need to be able to easily come and go. Those rights were given to him to facilitate his job, nothing more."

This answer had the elders stumped. They didn't think Tsunade had a viable reason for that one. Hell, they didn't even know Jiraiya was grooming Naruto to take over his duties. They had always thought that Jiraiya was training him as a favor to the boy's father. Because, let's face it, the boy wasn't talented.

There was no denying it. They had hoped that his ancestry would make him outshine other ninjas, but that wasn't to be. The boy wasn't very bright, stubborn and had a penchant for causing problem. Nothing like his late father or even his mother. While Kushina had been a tomboy, she had still been a genius when it came to seal. The apple had never fell so far away from the tree it seemed.

Learning that he beat Kakashi had taken them by surprise. So much that they didn't believe it until they saw the messed up copy ninja in the hospital.

Nevertheless they still had one question that needed to be answered before letting the matter goes.

"Did the boy use the Kyuubi to win?"

"You know that it is a classified matter. We never talk about the Jounin exams of our ninja in order to keep their abilities a secret. You both know that." Tsunade replied to Koharu's question but the latter didn't seem satisfied.

"That isn't the same thing. We didn't ask for his techniques, we just need to know if he used the Kyuubi as a clutch or we were mistaking about his talents." Homura supplied softly. This was of course a half truth but it would serve its purpose.

Tsunade hesitated for a moment before coming to a decision. "No, he didn't." She replied finally, prompting the two elders to share a glance at each other before nodding.

"That is good to know. And it will easy up our next decision then."

"What decision?" Tsunade narrowed her eyes at the two, feeling like she had backed to a corner.

"We knew you wouldn't agree with us to have his promotion retracted. So we came up with another plan to protect the boy from Akatsuki." Koharu replied smugly.

"And what plan is that? For that matter what make you think I will agree to whatever it is you have concocted?"

"You won't have a choice in the matter." Homura said rather boldly before looking back at the office's entrance.

"You can come in!"

Surprised, Tsunade swiftly turned her head to look at the entrance to see one of her least liked individual pass the door.

"Danzo!"

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA<strong> - Residential district

* * *

><p>Naruto's apartment was situated in the urban area of the city. The place had at first been purchased by Sarutobi upon discovering Naruto wasn't liked in the orphanage. Not wanting to bother with the matrons there, Sarutobi simply bought an apartment for Naruto.<p>

Since his 7 years old, Naruto had lived there. Because of his earlier independence, he had had to rely on himself for every little things. He did his own groceries shopping, his own laundry. He took care of his apartment by himself. All that was fine by him as it had given him a kind of maturity well beyond children his age.

Of course it wasn't sunshine everyday. He couldn't count the number of times he had been ripped off during his shopping. And that wasn't even because of his status as a Jinchuuriki. At the time he was a child living in a grown up world. Of course people would take advantage of his naivety.

Anyway, the apartment wasn't something grandiose. It had a living room, a kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom, the bare necessities. But it was enough for him… or had been enough. With his growing responsibilities and knowledge, it was quickly becoming obvious that he needed to move out into a bigger apartment or even a house.

While an apartment was fine, it didn't give much secrecy, something he dearly needed these days.

Money wasn't an issue as he never once used his earnings during his training trip with Jiraiya. And with the number of missions he did, let's just say that he was loaded. Enough to buy a small house a little away from the city, just like he wanted. Unfortunately he didn't have time for it.

Even now he was moving around his modest apartment, packaging his gear for another mission.

Carefully he re-checked his weapons, counted the number of kunais and shurikens he had. The count over, he put them in his pouch. He looked toward a corner of his room to find a straight katana with a blood red handle grip leaning on the wall. Before he could contemplate further on the weapon a shadow appeared on the window.

"Jiraiya — sensei…"

The toad sannin smiled as he jumped through the window and into his student's apartment.

"As always I can't sneak up to you anymore. One day you'll have to tell me how you do that." Despite his playful tone, Naruto knew he was annoyed.

Observing Naruto's surrounding and the way he packed his things, Jiraiya frowned. "You're moving out again!"

It wasn't a question and both of them knew it. Naruto's only response was to move toward his trusted katana and secure it on his back.

"I am!"

"Does that mean you found another Jinchuuriki's location?" Jiraiya wondered, quite surprised by it. Finding information about Jinchuuriki was really hard. Villages went to great length to protect the identity of their _weapon _after all. He was still surprised by how easily Naruto seemed to gain information on such things.

"Jinchuuriki is such a crud word… It's fitting and pretty much describe how such being is created, but why do you always need to remind me of that fact, I wonder." The harshness of Naruto's words was as clear as day. Jiraiya knew that the name bothered him a lot more than he let on, but he kept using this to remind him that he wasn't special. A way for him to curb his arrogance he had said.

"Maybe when you'll acknowledge yourself then I won't need to remind you of that. We may have given up on training you like a Jinchuuriki but that doesn't mean you aren't one. Still that doesn't answer my question."

Naruto looked at him calmly. Anyone else would have been bothered by such intense gaze but Jiraiya wasn't anyone. Add to that he had been on the receiving end of that look for a while now.

"I didn't find another Jinchuuriki…"

"Then what…" Jiraiya interrupted much to Naruto's ire.

"BUT… I found a Bijuu or rather his general location."

Jiraiya looked at him in wonder. He knew that a Jinchuuriki was always with his Bijuu, unless the later escaped. The only Jinchuuriki that died recently was the yondaime Mizukage. That meant only one thing…

"The Sanbi…" Once Naruto confirmed his guess he widened his eyes. "How the hell did you manage that gaki? My own personal spying network didn't find anything at all. Where the hell do you get that information anyway?" He grumbled exasperated.

He didn't want to admit it but Naruto's spying network was always a step ahead when it came to finding things and people whereabouts. The boy never explained why and how that was possible, no matter what. Still Jiraiya wasn't one to give up, so he pestered the boy as much as he could, hoping beyond hope that the latter would cave in.

"Really? You're gonna ask me this question again?"

"One cannot stop trying."

"I can see that." Naruto replied smiling at the attempt.

"Anyway, that's good news I suppose. If you manage to get that one, only 4 Jinchuuriki will be left to deal with."

"Gaara, Yugito, Bee and me."

"Yes! Though the last ones are gonna be hard to deal with. Yugito and Bee are under the Raikage's protection. Attempting anything on them would result in an international incident of epic proportion. I don't even wanna imagine the storm Ä will bring on us if he learned that we were behind it." Jiraiya nodded with himself as he spoke. Despite Naruto moving around the house, he knew the boy was listening to him.

"We'll think about something when the time comes. For now let's focus on what we can do."

"Yeah you're right. Still, Naruto?" His sensei serious behavior made Naruto pauses and face him.

"Be careful out there. With Akatsuki having lost 3 Jinchuuriki, they are bounds to start targeting you."

"I know that sensei. Don't worry about me. If there is one thing I learned during our training trip, it's my own limits. I know when to cut my losses."

"I sure hope so. Also do not forget what we agreed on." Jiraiya spoke sternly to Naruto who sighed.

"Should I encounter Akatsuki's leader again, I am to flee. Yes I know that, you told me the same thing over and over again."

Naruto's nonchalant attitude really got on Jiraiya's nerves, which prompted him to slam his hand on the wall beside him. The little apartment shook under the sannin strength but stayed rooted on the ground.

"This is not a game Naruto. Don't you remember your last encounter with him? It was luck that allowed you to escape…"

For the first time in a long while Naruto showed cold fury on his face. This was an emotion he rarely ever felt anymore, but the situation demanded such reaction.

"This was way before I mastered _that _technique. Now if we face each other again, I won't be the one fleeing."

"Why? Because during your last fight you were almost even? What make you think he was serious? Because I can assure you that the strength he showed wasn't above a low S-Ranked shinobi."

At that point, the discussion was turning into a shooting match. With neither side willing to capitulate. After a while, Jiraiya sighed in defeat. He passed his hand through his hairs trying to calm his nerves. '_This boy will be the death of me_'.

"Look, just try to avoid him as much as possible until we've found information about his Rinnegan. This is very dangerous grounds we are treading on. Facing a ninja with unknown abilities is very bad, but facing an S-Ranked ninja with unknown abilities is suicide. You should know, you trashed Kakashi because he knew nothing of your skills while you knew most of his."

"Are you sure you aren't just protecting your student Nagato?" This shocked Jiraiya to the point of silence. "I may understand that finding information about that dojutsu is downright impossible but the way you have gone about finding it is like you don't want to find it."

Seeing Jiraiya about to protest, he raised his hand to stop him. "Don't try to deny it. I've seen the way you search for that information and I know that you wouldn't have done that if it were anything else." Naruto looked at Jiraiya surprised look.

"Don't be surprised. Nagato attacking me in Takigakure was him signing his death warrant. Did you think I would solely rely on you to find information about him? If you did you're certainly losing your touch."

Jiraiya just stayed there in shock, looking at his student. This wasn't the first time they had had such spat but never had Naruto questioned him like that. Turning around he spanned the window and threw a last glance at Naruto.

"You have changed Naruto." Naruto looked at him just as Jiraiya disappeared in a swirl of leaves, his last words echoing in the room.

"But not in a good way!"

* * *

><p>With his sensei departure, Naruto was once again alone in his apartment. He knew he had been harsh on the sannin but that was the only way Jiraiya would take thing seriously on that front. Oh he knew very well everything Jiraiya had done to find information about the Rinnegan, which wasn't much considering his resources.<p>

He'd have searched the information himself if he could. Unfortunately his own spying network didn't deal with finding such information.

Dismissing the matter for now, he focused on the last thing he needed to check before leaving for his mission. '_Kakashi should still be in the hospital right now._' He thought before going out, not before locking his home. There wasn't much there to steal but he did it anyway.

As he moved on the rooftops toward the hospital building, he felt someone watching him. Once upon a time he would have looked at the direction he knew the spy to be, revealing his hand. But that was in the past. Without moving his head or giving any indication that he noticed the onlooker, he focused on the latter with his Reiryoku.

In his mind he seemed to zoom in on the individual. _'198 meters on my left._' He thought as he analyzed the male shinobi as he discovered. Said shinobi had short black hairs and wore a short black jacket with red straps. The jacket barely covered high collared midriff shirt, leaving exposed his belly. '_A strange outfit for a boy, that's for sure_' Naruto mumbled as he continued his observation, never straying from his path.

He also wore black pants, shinobi sandals and gloves. Finally a tanto was strapped on his back and his face was covered by a blank anbu mask.

Normally the mask would have indicated this ninja belonged to the Anbu division, but Naruto knew better. There were some perks to being apprenticed to Jiraiya after all. He knew a great deal of Konoha secrets. He needed to if he were to someday replace Jiraiya as the spymaster of the village. That is why he knew then and there that the onlooker was a member of Danzo's Root.

Narrowing his eyes, he left the matter be for now and kept moving until he reached his destination. Entering the building, he went for the teller inquiring about Kakashi's room. Once he had the information he went his way.

Meanwhile, Kakashi was lying on his bed wide awake. He was reminiscing on old good times with his late team when someone brushed the door.

"Come in!"

The door opened, letting in Naruto who smiled upon seeing his ex-sensei.

"Kakashi — sensei, I see you are awake."

"Naruto — kun, I wasn't expecting you." He smiled at the boy before noticing the jounin jacket he wore. "So… jounin then! How does that treat you?"

"Good sensei, I still can't believe I'm one though. Dreaming about being a jounin and being one is certainly not the same thing." He smiled as he said that. It was true that his new rank hadn't yet been registered in his mind.

"Trust me, this feeling won't last long. Especially when you'll be confronted with the reality of being a jounin. Now that you are one, you must set the example for your peers. So you better behave."

"Like how you set the example for children by reading that smut everywhere." The both laughed at that remark.

"You got me there!"

"I sure did, in more way than one." Smirking at his taunt, Naruto moved to sit beside Kakashi who eye-smiled.

"Still what the hell were those techniques you used?"

Naruto knew that question was coming. After all he had used very powerful techniques without handseals and they were certainly not common. Fortunately he had prepared himself to answer such things.

"They are called Kido, I created them." He said simply. His goofy personality gone once again. Talking about such required him to be serious after all. Kakashi noticed that but made no comment about the sudden change.

"You know that every Hokage held special techniques that made them extremely powerful. The Shodaime had his Mokuton, the Nidaime had his unequaled mastery over water ninjutsu, the Sandaime knew so much ninjutsu technique he could combine them in such a way it was almost impossible to escape and finally the Yondaime had his teleportation jutsu." Kakashi just nodded for Naruto to continue.

"During the training trip I researched something that would too set me apart. I'll need it if I want to become Hokage after all." A goofy smile found itself on Naruto's lips alleviating a little the tension.

"That's how I stumbled upon the Kido arts as I named them. They are a series of techniques I created to pretty much help me in every situation. They are mostly advanced manipulation of chakra." Most of it wasn't true but he had decided to stick with this story for now. He didn't want people to know he had discovered a new form of energy. Secrecy was a strong weapon after all.

"That must be pretty advanced manipulation then because I couldn't understand or copy it when I used my Sharingan. Not that I wanted to steal your jutsu." Kakashi quickly corrected once he saw Naruto's face darken.

"You wouldn't be able to anyway. But that is for another time." He smirked at seeing Kakashi's gobsmacked expression. Of course the Sharingan couldn't copy the technique. To make it works, one needed to use Reiryoku after all. It was the energy itself that allowed him to create a technique like that.

"Still I didn't come here just for a chat."

"I figured as much. So what did you have in mind."

Naruto hesitated a little. After all what he was about to do could be very dangerous. He didn't like to use Kakashi like that but he was the only one that could help him.

"Go ahead, I won't bite" Kakashi joked seeing Naruto's hesitation.

"I don't think you'll be as open once you hear what I have in mind." Taking a deep breath Naruto tried his luck.

"One of the thing I did during my trip was to research something to combat the Sharingan." Kakashi's widened eyes was certainly a comical scene but Naruto reminded himself he wasn't here for a laugh.

"I know that sooner or later I'll face Itachi or Sasuke. I also know that their dojutsu isn't something to ignore. So I searched its history, how it works and the ability it grants its wielder."

"Where did you come up with that information?"

"Jiraiya!" the answer satisfied the bedridden jounin and gestured for Naruto to continue.

"Anyway, after summing up all the abilities it granted, I tried to come up with something that could block the most debilitating ones like the induced hypnosis and the predicting ability. After a while I came up with something that should work but I had no one to test it on."

"I see." Kakashi interrupted him, having come to the correct conclusion. "And you need me to test it as I am the only one with a Sharingan here."

"That's right. The thing is, I do not know the consequences of using it. It could be very dangerous to you…"

"Do it!"

"What? You didn't let me finish!"

"I know that it could be dangerous but I'm willing to take the risk if it'll allow you to confirm its efficiency instead of taking a gamble during a real life or death battle." The seriousness in his voice was enough for Naruto to know Kakashi had made up his mind.

"Brace yourself then." Naruto mumbled as he stood in front of Kakashi.

He had trained with the technique to such an extent, activating it was like breathing to him. So with a low voice he muttered.

"**_Yami o Keihatsu_**"

* * *

><p>Lazily sitting on a rooftop several meters away from the white building, the blank masked anbu observed as Naruto got out of the hospital building. His eyes were squinted as he analyzed every step taken by the newly made jounin.<p>

He was tempted to attack him just for the heck of it but thought better. He had a mission to accomplish and attracting attention to himself wasn't in the mission parameters. And attacking would do just that.

He heard footsteps behind him but didn't react. The sound was closing on him until it finally stopped, replaced by a voice he knew very well.

"Anything interesting Sai?"

"Nothing so far. Then again, I wasn't given much leeway to acquire the needed information sempai." The newly named Sai replied, all the while keeping an eye on Naruto.

"I would say you take what you get but we both know you are used to such limitations. So I reiterate. Have you found anything worthy of interest on the subject?"

The voice came from another blank masked anbu that stood beside Sai. This one was heavily garbed, so much that only his mask was visible.

"I still don't get what is so interesting about the Jinchuuriki. Nonetheless, I didn't find anything worth mentioning."

"Please elaborate!"

"I've been standing in this position ever since he went out of his apartment and he didn't notice my presence even once. Even reducing my stealth capability to the level of newby Chunin didn't do the trick."

"This is strange. From the reports, it was indicated that he could hide from the village elites."

"Exactly!" Sai retorted. "So I thought he was just feigning it, but that wasn't it. It's more like he has an uncanny ability to hide from others but I suspect finding people is not his strong point."

"What else?" the masked anbu fired again. He was already analyzing the information provided and finding how they could use it to their advantage.

"That was the only thing I was able to test. Anything else would require direct confrontation with the subject."

"That is your official report I suppose. But what do you _really_ think of him?"

For the first time, Sai looked at his obvious superior. Traces of laziness had all but disappeared to be replaced a cold look. One that had seen death countless of time.

"He is _weak_!"

With that said, his body dissolved in bubbles of ink, leaving behind a contemplative anbu. He was mentally reading the file on his fellow ninja Sai, and comparing the data to the children his age. His comparison over, even himself was forced to admit that Sai was really above the lot of them.

'_Even if the young Uchiha prodigy has stayed in the village, Sai would have been above him by far. Maybe that's why he does not like them?'_

Still, knowing that no one would answer his query except Sai himself, he forgot about it and too disappeared.

Had he stayed a little longer, maybe he would have noticed the shadow of a man leaning against the left wall of the building, seemingly staring at nothing. Without indication of a jutsu being used, the shadow swiftly moved away.

* * *

><p><span><strong>Author's Note:<strong>

One thing that I didn't like in canon Naruto was the way they presented Sai as comparable if not stronger than Sasuke, yet they didn't show just why that is. At least not until the war.

Know that I intend to make full use of his talents.

Anyway see you soon folks!


	5. First move

**Disclaimer: **I don't own Naruto or Bleach. It is respectively the propriety of Kishimoto and Tite Kubo.

Hello everyone, I present you the next chapter of Shinigami. Hope you like it.

* * *

><p><strong>Summary of the previous chapter:<strong> _Tsunade has a meeting with the elders who try to cancel Naruto's promotion. Jiraiya and Naruto have a little dispute on the way to search information about the Rinnegan. Afterwards, Naruto visits Kakashi and tests a technique solely designed to counter the Sharingan. At the same time he is spied upon by Saï from Root. Said root ninja concludes that Naruto is weak._

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 5: First move<strong>

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA –<strong>

* * *

><p>"Damn that gaki for ruining my mood!" Jiraiya grumbled as he moved into the night.<p>

The sun had been out for a while now. He could see the countless lights that illuminated the village. From this far away, it looked like a convergence of fireflies.

"Implying that I'm botching up the search for the Rinnegan's powers while He should be thanking me for everything I've done for him!" Suffice to say that he wasn't happy.

His latest clash with Naruto was still heavy on his mind. Those clashes weren't as recurrent as before, but they still happened. And most of the times, it involved Akatsuki one way or another. If he wasn't trying to keep up his dignity, he would be cursing that group right now. They had been and still were a major part of the tumultuous relationship he had with his godson after all.

The forest blurred around him as he ran.

"Does he think I'm goofing around for nothing? I've been searching for clues about that damn dojutsu ever since I came back here!"

And that was true.

The first thing he did once he returned to the village with Naruto was to call in the few favors he had to advance his research. First was the Hyuga clan.

They owed him a lot. After all, maintaining the caged bird seal wasn't easy a task. Few knew this, but the seal was always updated to prevent anyone from cracking it with a newly created sealing method. And who better than a renowned seal master like him to do the job.

That favor had him granted the privilege — as the Hyuga clan put it — to inquire about their knowledge of eye based bloodline. The clan had made a lot of inquiries and searches on the subject for the sole purpose of advancing their own dojutsu.

Despite this, that avenue had been closed. The Rinnegan was but a myth to them. They had come to this conclusion after the lack of proof of its existence for so long ago. And who were they to blame for their unfortunately wrong conclusion? For more than a century, no one — that they knew or heard of — had manifested the illusive dojutsu.

Jiraiya's next step had been the Uchiha clan. Unfortunately no member of the clan was alive or aligned to Konoha these days. This forced him to resort to the only option left: _breaking into the Uchiha compound_. A task that turned out to be easier than expected.

This had happened two days ago, on the same day he came back to the village. He had combed through the clan housings until nothing was left unturned.

And to his great pleasure, he had scored gold.

While searching the Naka Shrine, he had spotted a sealing formula on one of the mats in the main hall. The design of the seal was that of the sharingan in the middle and several seal formulas surrounding it.

Intrigued by it, he immediately studied the seal in order to decipher it. After a while, and finding nothing, he left the Shrine, leaving behind a clone of his to continue the analysis. That had been two days ago.

Now he was going back there because his clone had finally decoded the formula.

At last he slowed down and stopped just in front of the Shrine in question. The only light in the area was that of the moon. Despite this though, his white mane was still visible from several meters away. With a confident stride, he walked into the Shrine until he reached the main hall. Looking around for a bit, he spotted the mat he was looking for and moved close to it.

From his clone analysis, the mat was in fact a rather large block of dense earth. The block was obstructing a tunnel that led somewhere deeper in the ground, though he had no idea where. The sealing formula on the block was a real piece of work. It countered any possible method to reach the tunnel except the one that was sealed by the block.

He had tried to move underground to reach the tunnel but somehow he always found himself back where he started, as if he was circling around. And despite his vast knowledge on seal, he still had no clue which part of the formula made that possible. The only thing he had been able to decipher was the way to move the block of earth away from the tunnel.

Which he was doing by going through hand seals right now.

Once he finished, he felt the ground rumble for a while before the block was slowly lifted off the ground and dropped beside the newly revealed set of stairs.

Smiling at his success, he created a clone and sent it to the tunnel.

"Better be careful. No need to get myself killed by mistake" He thought out loud while waiting for his clone to dispel itself.

He didn't have to wait that long. A rush of memories assaulted him and as if he had a vision, he knew exactly what was below there. Assured of the safety of the tunnel, he confidently went down the stairs and followed the tunnel until he reached a dead end.

In front of him stood a tablet. From far away it looked like a tombstone, but upon closer inspection he saw a lot of written information. Information that detailed the Sharingan and its techniques. It even had the different method to train it to mastery.

But it was useless to him.

Most of it was already known to him. "And now Naruto too." He added silently as he remembered the technique Naruto developed to counter the Sharingan. He was the one who provided the information on the Sharingan and its functioning.

What he needed right now was something, anything related to the Rinnegan. He needed to know what powers was granted to its user. The only things about it he knew for certain was that its user gained affinity for all elemental chakra and the extremely dangerous power over gravity.

"That last one was learned during Naruto and Yahiko confrontation. What a terrifying power it is." Only thinking about that confrontation made him shudder in fright.

He wasn't easily frightened by ninja techniques. After all he had witnessed so many already. But the power of that one technique had been horrible.

"With two words, that boy ended that battle and everything around him!"

He would forever remember those words, those words that invoked hell upon earth.

_Shinra Tensei._

Focusing once again on his surroundings, he sighed in frustration. Another avenue closed before his eyes and his chances of finding anything about the Rinnegan dropped even further.

Turning on his feet, he moved back to the secret entrance when, out of the corner of his eyes, he saw something glistening. Stopping dead on track, he shifted again and closed the gap between him and the tombstone. Trying to find whatever light show he saw was about, he examined the stone once more, trying everything he could think of to pry whatever secrets it was hiding. But to no avail.

"Dammit!" Cursing his bad luck, he backed up once again, but this time still facing the tombstone, hoping for something to happen.

"There again!" He exclaimed at around five feet from the stone. "That soft light appeared again. Could it be…"

The last part was muttered. The hope in his voice clear as day. He had an idea of what could cause that show. Without wasting any time, he took out his ink and brush, then started designing a sealing formula he was very familiar with.

Before long his task was over. The final design was that of a pentagram with sealing scripts at each corner. Inspecting his work one more time, he smiled, satisfied that he couldn't detect any mistakes in the seal. He rummaged through his breast pocket and retrieved a blank scroll that he put on the middle of the seal formula. Then he channeled his chakra to the seal, activating it.

The pentagram was illuminated with a bright red light that seemed to encompass the room. As if by magic, the seal formula was replicated in each wall of the piece, thus increasing the light show. Few minutes later, the light show ended, leaving Jiraiya to observe the result of his technique.

And he wasn't disappointed when on the tombstone, a complex looking seal appeared.

"Victory! I'm really good at what I do." Jiraiya grinned from ear to ear, praising himself from another job well done.

The seal he had used was one that had been invented during the third shinobi world war by his own student no less. In a nutshell it revealed every seal present in an area. Of course there were method to fool this technique but it was never publicly revealed. So no one out there knew of its existence.

The sealing arts, although very difficult to change, were nonetheless prone to evolution, especially in the face of annihilation. If this technique was revealed, ninjas out there wouldn't rest until they found a way around it. It was just too much of a security risk after all.

The designer of the seal on the tombstone, although certainly extremely talented, couldn't have guarded its seal from a technique that hadn't been created during his time or even that he didn't know the existence of.

Before long, Jiraiya had finished copying the seal on a scroll that he pocketed immediately afterward. He knew he was in for several long nights of research because of the seal. A simple glance at it told him that it was even more complex than the one guarding the entrance to this room.

"I didn't get that far with that one seal. I really wonder if I'll crack this one. Just my luck to find a piece of the puzzle but being unable to solve it… for now."

He easily traced back his steps and closed the tunnel before disappearing in a swirl of leaves to another location.

* * *

><p><strong>HOKAGE TOWER — <strong>_TSUNADE'S OFFICE_** —**

* * *

><p>As usual, Jiraiya got inside Tsunade's office by passing through the windows, prompting the latter to throw furnitures at him.<p>

"When are you gonna walk through the door like everyone!"

"Sorry that's not my style, I prefer the back door if you catch my vibes."

Another wall dented with Jiraiya's head later and everything went back to normal. Jiraiya rubbed his head, all the while grumbling. "Man, why do all women even remotely pretty got to be bitchy."

"You said something!"

"No, nothing!" Jiraiya quick reply may just have saved his ass from another beating, but that he would never know.

"Anyway, you wanted to see me?"

Tsunade, sitting behind her desk, sighed. "Yeah I did. I got a visit from our happy triad."

"You mean the elders?"

"Who else would I be talking about? Are you sure you're alright, you seem pretty slow tonight."

"And I bet you know slow!" With a lecherous grin, Jiraiya winked at Tsunade.

"I won't even dignify that with comment. Can we be serious for a moment."

"Ok sorry about that. I just got a rough evening. So what does Danzo's band of misfits want this time?"

"What do you think? They learned that Naruto got promoted to Jounin and tried to rescind it."

"And you did?" Jiraiya asked her with a serious look.

"Of course not. The boy trained like hell to get there. If I did that I don't even want to imagine the consequences. Moreover he beat Kakashi for fuck sake. That is way beyond most of our jounin."

"Damn right he deserves it." He smirked as he proudly recalled how Naruto handled Kakashi. "So what did they do. I assume they didn't accept kindly your refusal."

"Indeed they didn't. They ambushed me with a meeting with Danzo and tried to have Naruto shadowed at all time by one of Danzo's ninja. Obviously I declined their offer."

"Then everything is fine then. So why would you have me here?"

"Jiraiya this is the elders we are talking about. If there is one thing I learned about them is that they never take no for an answer."

"What you are saying is…"

"That even though I refused, they'll still send ninjas after Naruto to observe him. You have to tell the boy to be careful from now on. I don't know what Danzo wants with him, but that can't be good.

Jiraiya smiled at her before jumping on the window, ready to leave. "Don't worry too much about that. If there is someone that should be careful, it is the elders. If anything, should Naruto get wind of them spying on him, it will shift his attention on them."

He left her with partying words that had her shaken. "And it is never a good idea to have the attention of _the Shinigami._"

* * *

><p>Ignoring that he was the object of several conversation, Naruto was partying with his friends. What were they celebrating? His promotion to Jounin of course.<p>

"Ayame, another bowl of Ramen!"

"Coming up Naruto-kun." Ayame yelled from the kitchen.

"Really? You gonna take another bowl after the last five you had?" Sakura screeched at him. She was sitting on his left, with the other members of Konoha twelve all around the table.

"Trust me, you ain't seeing nothing yet. Naruto could eat out Ichiraku's reserve if he wanted." Chouji supplied while munching on a roasted chicken wing. He wasn't alone as Kiba and Shino were eating too.

"Yeah me too!" Kiba added his own cents. "Us big boys gotta eat you know. How do you think we got this strong?"

"Said the man who has been stuck Chuunin for what, two years now." The table erupted in laughter at Kiba expense.

"I totally resent that Tenten. For your information I just don't want to get there that fast you know. I wouldn't want to bruise people's ego by blowing out the competition."

"Your ego you meant!" Neji added, smiling at Kiba for the come back. "We all know you'd challenge Hokage-sama if given the opportunity."

"Of course I can totally do that. Obviously I would be going easy on her though. No need to humiliate her after all. But seriously I got too much on my plate already to add the Jounin status too. Speaking of which, how was your test Naruto?"

"Yeah Kiba is right, you didn't even told us about your test. How did it go? Obviously well if you got promoted."

Naruto looked at Sakura wondering how he should answer her question. He looked around the table and saw that all of them were waiting for his reply.

"You all know I'm not supposed to be talking about that, don't you? Especially you Neji, you are a jounin too. I'm sure you didn't tell them how your test went."

"Don't pin that on me. I wasn't asked this question, so we are not on the same boat." Neji smirked as he put back the attention on Naruto who looked at him in fake betrayal.

"How could you? I thought we helped each other between fellow jounins. Are you saying all that speech they gave us about helping each other out after the exams was nonsense?"

"I never got that speech, so I wouldn't know."

"Liar!" Naruto jumped out of his chair with an accusing finger pointed toward Neji who just smiled innocently.

"You got no proof!"

"I sure as hell don't need one. I call bullshit when I see it."

"Don't care!"

"Bullshit!"

"Don't care!"

"Bullshit"

"Don't…"

"Shut the fuck up you two." Silence descended on the table as an enraged Sakura slammed her hand on the table, not unlike an angry Tsunade.

"Jeez, she's like a mini-Tsunade. I feel sorry for her future husband." Kiba muttered. Unfortunately, his voice wasn't low enough.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, Oh god nothing! I swear!"

"Everyone is having fun I see." A drawl coming from the stand entrance was heard. As one they looked at the speaker, only to see Shikamaru move the curtain away. Behind him, an irritated Temari followed.

"Shikamaru you are late. We started without you. Hope you are not mad, I was just too hungry to wait." Naruto offered smiling. Despite his mouth full of food, he still managed to talk audibly.

"No worries. We had things to do on our side. That is why we were late. Anyway I heard you got promoted, congratulations." Shikamaru replied while providing a chair for Temari to sit, then following after.

"Thanks man. At least one of us is happy about that. The others just want to know how it went while Kiba is jealous I got there first." The massive grin on Naruto's face said just how much fun he was having, especially at Kiba's expense.

"That's just a title, you got nothing on me." Kiba crossed his arm as if to make a point. "I can take you when I want."

"Dream on!"

"Really? You're gonna make us beg you to tell us how your test went?" Sakura having enough finally snapped at Naruto.

"Okay, okay. No need to get all angry at me. I got to fight against Kakashi sensei." Naruto finally answered.

They were for several seconds, waiting for him to elaborate and tell them how the fight went, but he wasn't forthcoming.

"That's it? You fought Kakashi, then what? What happened? Who won? You told us nothing man!" Kiba grumbled expressing the feeling of all on the table.

"That's all I can say. You all know that Jounin examination is confidential. Even if I wanted, I couldn't tell you more than that. Neji knows that. Why am I the only one being questioned?"

"Because you're the only one we didn't see for a while. Logically we got curious about your level." For the first time Shino talked and it sounded really strange for him to speak for so long. Still, Naruto could tell that they were really anxious to know about his training.

"Trust me he got plenty strong!" Temari's voice was like a sharp knife. It cut through and brought silence to the table. Of course, everyone looked at her in wonder, wondering what she knew that they didn't. Unless they were mistaken, Naruto didn't meet with the Sand jounin for just as long. So how would she know about that.

Though the look she sent Naruto definitely wasn't friendly. They looked back at Naruto who didn't seem to care and kept eating his Ramen.

"Sorry, is there a story between both of you." Kiba couldn't help but ask, smirking perversely.

Offended, Temari looked at Kiba with a scowl on her otherwise nice figure. "Why would I want to be anywhere near that asshole?"

The members of Konoha twelve looked at Temari as if she had lost her mind. They knew Naruto was often annoying with his ramblings, but an asshole, that was a first. They looked insistently at Naruto, wondering if he would defend himself, but the newly made Jounin didn't even bat an eyelash.

Shikamaru looked at the two in silent contemplation. '_Maybe I wasn't dreaming when I saw her look at him with contempt yesterday after all. This is so troublesome._'

"Why are you saying that Temari — san?" Sakura asked softly.

"Why don't you ask him. I'm sure he has lot to tell you. Oh I forgot he didn't tell any of you shit about his training. Don't you all wanna know what he did during that time?"

This time, Naruto stopped eating and laid the chopsticks on the table. Gone was the fun-loving Naruto. In his steed was a serious looking jounin, someone Sakura was quickly becoming accustomed to.

Though the act didn't intimidate Temari in the slightest.

"What're you looking at? You think that scares me? I got news for you, I grew up with Gaara and his look was way meaner than yours."

"Temari I think you should calm down." Shikamaru offered. He didn't want to intervene but he concluded that if things went too far, it would be even more troublesome.

But that wouldn't work. Temari had just too much on her plate. She had been repressing those feelings for so long that she just couldn't anymore. If she didn't found an outlet for it, she didn't know what would happen.

"Trust me Shikamaru I'm calm right now. If I wasn't I wouldn't be fucking speaking. I'd tear that egoistical asshole a new one."

"Oh shit! Things just got real!" Kiba shouted.

Sakura looked at Naruto again and yelled at him. "Naruto, aren't you gonna say something?"

"What do you think he's gonna say? Do you think he will apologize now for what he did when all this time he said nothing."

"What are you talking about? You are accusing him of something we know nothing about. Do you think we are gonna take that lying down without defending him?" Sakura finally snapped at Temari having enough of her badmouthing him.

"You would defend that trash wouldn't you. Go ahead, do just that. But if you think I'm gonna stop because of that, you got another thing coming." Temari shot back before gazing at Naruto once again. "Why don't you tell them how close you came to break the pact between Suna and Konoha? I'm sure they all want to hear that."

The sound of shattering glasses filled the piece. With shocked gasps, everyone turned around and looked at Naruto for more information. They couldn't believe what was just happening. Naruto, the boy who always proclaimed his desire to be Hokage, had come close to jeopardizing their safety. This was just too much.

"Naruto?" Chouji softly questioned him. Hoping beyond hope that everything that was said was false or that there was an explanation to this.

"Yeah Naruto, tell them!" Temari venomously added. "Tell them what you tried to do to Gaara, tell them how you tried to rip…"

"ENOUGH!" Naruto voice startled everyone. It wasn't that he was angry or something. Despite the increase in his voice's volume, no emotions was felt. That is what surprised them.

Suddenly an unnatural pressure filled the piece. One by one, the Konoha twelve, including Temari were forced to sit on their chair. The pressure was just too much to bear. Looking at their surrounding they got the feeling that the stand was shaking, frightening them even further.

'_What the fuck is that?_' was on their mind. They knew the pressure came from Naruto but they couldn't understand how or what it was.

The look Naruto gave Temari sent chills up her spine. She knew just who Naruto was. She knew that he could kill her if he wanted but for a short lapse of time she forgot all about that. She forgot that the man before her wasn't quite like the boy Gaara had admired at one point. This man was _the Shinigami_, whenever he took a mission everyone involved in it that he found guilty were swiftly terminated.

"You seem to think that your opinion and you childish behavior matter to me. Maybe I gave you the wrong signals. Or maybe I somehow made you think that you were entitled to talking to me like that. But whatever impression you got off me, you better forget about it and fast." The pressure in the room didn't seem to wane, if anything it just increased.

"I am neither your friend nor an outlet for you to vent your frustration. Speaking to you is beneath me. Yes, my actions made you reconsider allying yourself to Konoha. Yes, what I wanted to do was somewhat selfish. I never denied that. And trust me, if it wasn't for Jiraiya, I would have _finished _what I started."

Temari widening of her eyes would have been comical if the situation wasn't so serious.

"I know what you are thinking right now. _Were you really willing to do that to Gaara? To your friend?_ The thing is I don't care. Simply because he wouldn't have been harmed in anyway. Only his fear and _HIS_ cowardice stopped him from going through with it. And I just know that this will come back to bite us in the ass when Akatsuki do come after him. And when that happens — and it WILL happen — you better hope that you got the manpower to push back their attack. Because I won't lift a single finger for any of you."

Having spoken his mind, he rose from his sit and left the stand.

As soon as he left, the pressure was lifted, allowing those present to normally breath again. The shock of the confrontation hadn't worn off yet but they could only see Temari shakily rise from her chair, her eyes wide open, and leave the stand too.

The only comment that was voiced and by Kiba was "What the fuck just happened?"

* * *

><p><strong>SEVERAL MILES FROM IRON COUNTRY —<strong>

* * *

><p>"Thanks for your help Koichi-san. As always, your work is flawless!" A man garbed like a samurai exclaimed to a merchant who stood behind the counter of a table exposing his goods. On the table laid several high quality weapons ranging from small knife to long sword.<p>

"Pleasure to do business with you too. Remember how you always doubted my work! It took you almost losing your life because of a flawed weapon before you accepted that my work was the best!" Koichi grinned toothily as he said that to his customer. The latter looked sheepish as he scratched his neck.

"Let's forget about bad times, shall we? You know better than to remind me of such things."

"Just saying the truth dude!"

"Yeah, more like rubbing it in my face, damn. Maybe I should stop complimenting you. God only knows just how big your ego is." The two laughed at the banter as they exchanged pleasantries.

Koichi was a well known blacksmith in the area. Like several others close to Iron country, he specialized in high quality weapons. Unlike the conventional ones, the metal used to manufacture them was very durable and hard to come by. They were destined to people who valued a good weapon and were advanced enough to notice the difference with a standard weapon.

Today had been one of those days when the market was flooded with people. Samurais, civilians, tourists and even some ninjas had strolled past his counter all day long, looking for a gem. With the sunset coming, it was high time for him to close shop.

Yawning tiredly, he went about packing away his goods and storing them in the small cabin behind his counter. The cabin wasn't much. Each corner of the piece was used to store materials or shelves. On the shelves laid several weapons that had been exposed earlier on, while in the other corners rested his materials to manufacture weapons. This left the middle of the piece free, giving him greater freedom of movement, which was something he preferred.

While tidying up his place, he was startled by a grave voice that seemed to come from the cabin itself.

"Koichi no last name, grew up in Iron country with his parents. His father was a blacksmith not unlike himself, while his mother was a waitress. For the better part of his life, he worked with his father and helped him manage the familial store. After a while, he went on his own trying to leave a mark in the world. Did I leave something?"

Scared shitless by the disembodied voice, the only thing Koichi had to say was "W… Who is there?"

Cold laughter reverberated through the piece, further pushing Koichi to the edge. "Show yourself whoever you are, or I swear to god I'm gonna call the militia!"

"What are you waiting for then? Call them!" The voice replied, openly laughing at him.

This send a chill down Koichi's spine. The area he currently lived in was monitored by the militia, a sub-division of Iron country army. They were well respected and were in charge of maintaining order. Usually, when someone mentioned them, it was enough to make non-law abiding citizens back off. The only ones that weren't afraid of that group were ninjas.

And that is what made him so scared.

The fact that whoever it was could project their voice everywhere in the room was proof enough that the intruder was a ninja.

In a desperate attempt to flee the room and alert someone of his current predicament, Koichi rushed toward the door and clamped on the doorknob, engaging the mechanism to open the door. Or at least tried to do so, because the next moment he was sent back in the middle of the piece and he felt pain unlike any before, coming from his stomach.

Coughing blood, he tried to rise from the ground but only succeeded in kneeling. As he raised his head, he widened his eyes as the weirdest thing he had ever seen stood before him.

A man with a long black cloak with red clouds stood before him. The things that shocked though, were the venus trap like protuberances above the shoulder of his would be attacker.

"Let's make it simple Koichi-san. We can do this the easy way or the hard way, the choice is yours to take. Either way, by the time I step out of this cabin, you will have answered any questions I have. So what will it be?"

Koichi certainly wasn't a fighter and had never been trained as one. He didn't know what was going on but what he did know, was that the ninja before him wouldn't hesitate to kill him. If anything else, he felt like this man wanted him to be difficult, just so he could torture him. With that in mind, he made the obvious choice.

"Whatever you want I am giving it to you free of charge, just take everything you want, but please, I don't want to die." Real tears fell down his face as he implored his captor.

"Spare me your little drama. Your wares do not interest me. What I want to know, is if you sold or recognize this weapon." As if by magic, at least for Koichi, an image of an elegant handle, presumably for a short sword appeared in front of the ninja. The design was flawless, so much that with but a glance, Koichi knew that this was beyond his work.

Something he shared with the man in front of him.

"Do you know of someone capable of making it?" The ninja demanded once again.

"The only one I know of, is the current blacksmith of Iron country's army. I heard he could make wonders like this weapons. I know nothing more, please."

The ninja watched with disgust as Koichi begged with his head down on the ground. This was unfathomable for someone like him. He was tempted to leave this pathetic human alive but thought otherwise. He couldn't afford to leave proofs of his activity, less he alerts undesirable people of his actions.

_'This isn't going as well as I thought it would. Already seven blacksmiths and none of them created the strange weapon used by Shinigami. I was certain it would be easy to find information on it and by association on Shinigami but so far, this is not going so well.'_ The ninja silently thought as he slowly melted into the ground, leaving behind the human that soiled his pants at his sight and a parting gift in the form of an explosive note.

_'At least he gave me another blacksmith to investigate. Though this one will be tricky. The blacksmith of Iron country army is always well protected. I'll have to be careful for that one.'_

Despite this setback, he was happy that he was making progress. The investigation he was doing was vital for his leader after all. They had to find at least the identity of their new opponent if they ever wanted to get a hold of him.

* * *

><p><strong>KONOHA —<strong>

* * *

><p>Naruto arrived back to his apartment a short while after the altercation with Temari. His mind was focused on the task at hand and not on the earlier event. Said event wasn't really on his mind. To be fair, the only reason he reacted so strongly was to stop Temari from revealing too much of his actions.<p>

He didn't really care that much about the treaty between Konoha and Suna having been threatened for one simple reason: _it hadn't been_.

Suna wouldn't have rescinded the alliance because Gaara wouldn't have. Yes he did attack Gaara but both of them knew why he did that. If anything, it was just a spat between Naruto and Gaara, two fellow Jinchuuriki. While Temari's protective nature was commendable, her reaction was unneeded.

Choosing to forget about the whole thing, he unlocked and opened the door leading to his room. He strode toward the corner he left his gear at and swiftly got dressed for an extended mission. Beyond the normal attire he usually wore, he added a large brown coat, then he fastened his sword to his hip. The sword was an elegant one and one he acquired during his travel in Iron country, a trip that was unknown to Jiraiya and everyone for that matter.

Apart from the obvious high quality of the metal, the sword was nothing more than a samurai katana. The blade was about 2 and a half feet long and 2 inches high. The hilt was of simple design as well, with a black material covering it to increase the adherence. The guard though was another matter. It was a work of art. It was round shaped with the material forming the yin-yang symbol.

Normally he would have gone for a simpler design but circumstances had forced him to go for this one. It was easily recognizable and that is exactly what he wanted. Just thinking about the reason behind it made Naruto smirk in anticipation.

Finally ready and having done a double check of all his gear, he positioned himself in the middle of the room and took several calming breath. What he was about to do required his complete focus. Unlike what Jiraiya thought of the nature of his spying network, the truth was way more complicated than that. The only thing his sensei knew about it was that it was suited for tracking people down.

Several times, Jiraiya had guessed that Naruto used humans or even animal to get the information he wanted, but this was so far from the truth it wasn't even funny.

"I wonder what he would think if he knew that the simple seal I asked him to design is the basis to this network." Naruto thought with a smirk.

One of the Kido techniques he had created had been specifically engineered to track people down. The technique vastly enhanced the user's senses and awareness. As such, when Naruto used it with his already high awareness, he was able to sense energy — chakra or spiritual energy — in a range of almost fourty miles.

Wanting to cover most of the elemental country, he had the idea to expand the technique reaches. After refining the technique to the max, he hit a wall that had stayed impenetrable for a while, until Jiraiya presented him a seal capable of storing a technique.

After some tweaking done to it with the help of the Toad sennin, the two had come up with a seal that could use the surrounding energy to recharge itself. The seal completed, it only left Naruto the task of placing it in several areas in the elemental country. This was done every time Naruto ditched Jiraiya, in order to preserve the nature of his actions.

That is how Naruto's spy network was born.

His focus complete, Naruto slowly kneeled on the ground before drawing a circle on it, using his reishi as ink. He divided the circle in four parts and drew a symbol on each quadrants. The task done he positioned both of his palms on the floor below the circle and uttered softly yet confidently.

"_Bakudo 58 : Kakushitsuijaku_"_ — Summoning of the tracking sparrows_.

The circle glowed with a blue light and Naruto watched the symbols become animated and quickly shuffling between several numbers. Then as quickly as it happened everything stayed still.

While nothing seemed to have changed in the room, it was another story for Naruto. The latter had his eyes closed and seemed in deep concentration.

In his mind, he could feel everything inside and beyond Konoha. Everything possessing an energy was known to him, no matter how hidden it was to the world. It gave him a sense of euphoria so strong he had the feeling he could lost himself in it if he wasn't used to it by now.

He quickly sensed one of the seal used for his network and remotely activated it, thereby doubling his range. He did the same for every seal he could feel, but specifically in the direction of Water country where he knew the Bijuu energy he had sensed was.

In his mind, it looked like a darkened map of the world was slowly but surely illuminated. He could activate all the seals of the network but it took too much of his concentration to do so. So he preferred to focus on a particular area.

Once the technique was fully activated, he searched for the particular energy emitted by a Bijuu and as expected, found nothing. Though he did found once again the energy that drew his attention a few day earlier. It belonged to a young boy and seemed very close to that of a Bijuu. He didn't know how that was possible as he knew for a fact that the boy wasn't a Jinchuuriki, being familiar to the energy signature emitted by those. Nonetheless this required an investigation.

He was surprised though when unlike the first time he sensed the energy, he felt 7 energy signatures close by the boy. Although he recognized none of them, two of them had the chakra level of an A ranked ninja.

Having all the information he needed, he shut down the network and took several deep breath to regain his composure.

"This technique is really demanding." He muttered between breaths. "Time to go hunting it seems." He finally said.

Rising from his kneeling position, he raised his hand above his head as a long white piece of cloth spun around him until it tightly coiled around his whole body. With a white flash, Naruto vanished from his apartment, leaving nothing behind. Only the words _Sentan Hakuja_ were left echoing in the piece.

* * *

><p><em>To be continued...<em>


End file.
